

I 



1 sfj I"© 



flit ^i^^ t '(SBk 



V 



^1 




,0 o 



x o 



A*" 



•ill 



THE CHITKOH: 

HER AUTHORITY DERIVED FROM THE PAST 
HER PRESENT ADVANTAGES; 
HER FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



REASONS 



FOR 

BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



ADDRESSED TO ENGLISH SPEAKING CHRIST- 
IANS OF EVERY NAME. 



BY 




THE REV. ARTHUR WILDE LITTLE, M. A., 

Rector of Saint Paul's Church, 
Portland, Maine. 




MILWAUKEE, WIS. : 
The Young Churchman Co., Publishers. 
1885. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



<O 
fa 



COPYRIGHTED, 1885, 

BY ARTHUR WILDE LITTLE. 



PRINTED BY 

King, Lawton St Fowle, 

MILWAUKEE. 



TO 

THE COMMUNICANTS OF THE CHUKCH 

m 

Saint Paul's Parish, Portland, Maine, 
THIS VOLUME 

IS 

Affectionately Dedicated 

BY THEIR 

Pastor and Friend, The Author. 



PREFACE. 



THESE Eeasons for being a Churchman are addressed to 
English - speaking Christians, because the Angltcan 
Church is that part of the Catholic Church which has 
lawful jurisdiction over that part of the earth which is occu- 
pied by the English-speaking race. Our Church can lay no just 
claim to the obedience of Orientals, Italians, Frenchmen, Mex- 
icans, and the like. They owe allegiance to the Dioceses and 
Provinces of the Church Catholic in their respective countries. 
Of their peculiar difficulties, of their need of reformation, and 
of their proper courses of action, it is no part of this book to 
treat. 

The object in view is twofold : — 

First, to strengthen those who are already in actual con- 
formity with the Anglo-Catholic Church. It was a profound 
observation of our great Archbishop, St. Anselm : 

" Neglegentia mihi videtur si, postquam conftrmati sumus in 
Fide, non studemus quod credimus intelligere."! 

This "negligence" among Churchmen is lamentable and 
appalling — a chief cause of indifferentism and apostacy. The 
Primate of All England recently declared : " There is perhaps 
not even now one Churchman in ten who is as well instructed 



1. It seems to me the part of negligence if, after we have been confirmed in 
the Faith, we do not try to understand what we believe. 



viii 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



in the reasons why he is a Churchman, as Dissenters or Roman 
Catholics are instructed in the arguments whereby their posi- 
tion is defended. This should surely be remedied." If the two 
million nominal adherents of the Church in the United States 
did but fairly appreciate the history, the claims, and the bless- 
ings of American Catholicism, the individual faith and piety 
and the general influence of our Church, would be increased an 
hundredfold. 

The second object in view is to call the attention of our non- 
conforming brethren —Roman and Protestant alike— to the 
historic continuity, the divine authority, the lawful jurisdiction, 
the true Catholicity, and the practical advantages of the vener- 
able Church of their ancestors and ours, the Mother-Church of 
the English-speaking race. Those who have of late conformed 
to the Church (and they are a numerous company) agree in say- 
ing that the reason they did not " come home " sooner, was 
because they were ignorant of their 11 Father's House," Surely 
the claims of the Reformed Catholic Church of our race — 
reformed indeed, but Catholic still — are worth considering. 

The argument is stated frankly and from the Catholic stand- 
point. It first took shape in a course of Sunday evening lec- 
tures in the Parish Church of St, Paul, Portland, Maine. It 
next appeared as a series of thirty-six articles in a leading 
Church weekly. 2 It is now, at the request of many readers — 
Bishops, Priests, and laymen — sent forth in book form, with the 
prayer that it may contribute something to tLe glory of Incar- 
nate God and the upbuilding of His Kingdom of Grace. 

A. W. L. 

Portland, Maine, St. Matthew's Daj% 1885. 



2 "The Living Church,*' Dec. 13th, 1884, to Aug. 22d, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

The Question Stated. 

The Three Divisions of English-speaking Christians — Churchmen — 
Recusants — ( The essence of the Reformation — The Italian 
Schism in England and Ireland) — Dissenters — (Their origin and 
position) — Plan of Argument — Authority — Expediency — Fu- 
ture Prospects, - 1-6 

CHAPTER II. 
Did God Found a Church which Still Exists? 

The raison d'etre of Man-made Churches — Church in Eden — Cov- 
enant of Redemption — Patriarchal Dispensation — Mosaic — 
Jewish Church a type and promise of the Catholic Church — 
"The Kingdom of God" at hand, - 7-14 

CHAPTER III, 

Did Christ Found a Catholic Church which Still 
Exists ? 

Christianity not an " Idea," hut an Organism — Christ's Parables — 
His Promises — He founds His Kingdom on Earth — Appoints 
a permanent self-perpetuating Ministry — Apostolic Succession 
in a single clause, - - - - - - - 15-21 

CHAPTER IY. 
The Pentecostal Church. 

Christ's Commands carried out by the Apostles — The Descent of 
the Holy Ghost — Picture of the Apostolic Church — No Rom- 
anism — No Protestantism — Both Inconceivable in the Early 
Church, - 22-31 



X 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER Y. 

PAGE. 

Marks of the Holy Catholic Church. 

Baptism — The Doctrine of the Apostles — The Fellowship of the 

Apostles — The Breaking of the Bread — The Prayers, - 32-35 



CHAPTER VI. 



The Anglican Church and Holy Baptism. 

Continuity of the Anglican Church — What is Baptism? — Regener- 
ation not Conversion — Teaching of the Bihle — Of the Fathers 
— Infant Baptism — Uninterrupted theory and practice of the 
Anglican Church — Importance of the Sacrament of the New 
Birth, - - - 36-44 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Anglican Church and " The Apostles' Doc- 
trine." 

Episcopacy not everything — Anglican Church not Roman, and 
not Protestant — The Primitive Faith — Holy Scripture — The 
Apostolic Creed — Eastern form, Western form — Nicsea and 
Constantinople — The Athanasian Creed — The XXXIX. Articles 
not a Creed — The Anglican Church always Orthodox — "Infal- 
lible" Bishops of Rome sometimes heretical — Greek, Anglican, 
and Roman Churches have the same Creed — Roman Additions 
— Relation of Dissenters to the Apostolic Faith, - - 45-57 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Apostles' Fellowship : What Saith the 
Scripture ? 

Apostolic Episcopacy necessary to the unity, continuity and au- 
thority of the Church — The Apostolic Office permanent — The 
Three Orders — The Perennial Ivy — St. Matthias the 13th Apos- 
tle — St. James the 14th — Evidence that He was Bishop of Je- 
rusalem— Twenty-three Men called Apostles in the N. T.— Tim- 
othy Bp. of Ephesus — Titus Bp. of Crete — Eighteen others, 58-66 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE. 

Primitive Episcopacy and its Official Titles. 

Three Orders — Apparent Confusion of Names — No Confusion of 
Orders — Priests sometimes called "Bishops" in the sense of 
Pastors or Overseers — Apostoli sunt Epixcopi — Evidence that 
the Apostles who Succeeded the Twelve gradually Appropriated 
the title of Bishop — The title of Apostle lingered in some 
places — The Didache, ...... 57-71 

CHAPTER X. 

Primitive Episcopacy and. the Testimony of the 
Apostolic Fathers. 

Episcopacy not defended in the Early Church because not an open 
question — Apostolic Order Universal — Early rhurch Presby- 
terial only, if you leave out the A pasties — Diaconal, if you 
leave out both Apostles and Presbyters — Episcopacy not Neces- 
sarily Diocesan — Earliest Witnesses— St. Clement— St. Poly- 
carp— St. Ignatius— His Epistles to theEphesians, Magnesians, 
Trallians, Romans, Philadeiphians, Smyrnseans, and to Poly- 
carp, - - - - 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Witness of the Fathers — Continued. 

Admissions of Gibbon, Guizot, Qrotius — Strength of our Position — 
Churchmen "No Fools "— Unanswered Challenge of Hooker— 
"Epistle to Diognetus" — Testimony of Dionysius; of St. Ire- 
nceu<; of Polycrates; of St. Clement, of Alex.; of Tertullian; 
of Origen; of St. Cyprian, etc.— " Study the Fathers, 1 ' - 85-97 

CHAPTER XII. 

If the Primitive Catholic Church was not Epis- 
copal. What was It ? 

Experiment of a learned Presbyterian Minister — The Historic 
Church Episcopal because it started so — If not, when and how 
did it become so ? — No instance of a non-Episcopal Church — 
A Camel larger than the wooden Horse of Troy — While the 
Apostles lived the Church undeniably Episcopal — The post- 
Apostolic Episcopate dove-tailed into the Episcopate of the 
Apostles — No room for a radical change of polity — Could such 
a change take place in a Protestant denomination? — A "tempest 
in a tea-pot 1 ' — How revolutions occur — Rise of the Papacy an 
example, - 98-104 



xii 



CONTENTS. 



APPEXDIX TO CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE, 

Desperate Expedients to get Rid of the Bishops 
of the Early Church. 

The assumption that a Bishop was only a Pastor of one Congregation 

— How about Titus ? — One hundred Cities in his Parish — St. 
James, the over-worked Pastor !— 41 Tens of thousands" of parish- 
oners, at least fifty Churches — Ignatius in Antioch, 200,000 in- 
habitants, calls himself the Bishop of Syria — Ostesemtts; one 
Parish in Ephesus simply preposter@us — Case of St. Mark in 
Alexandria — S£. Cyprian in Carthage: great multitude of clergy 
(not " ruling elders " but " Glorious Priests ") ; Cathedral and 

Ten Churches —The " Moderator Hypothesis," - - 105-108 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A Few Fragments that Remain Touching Apos- 
tolic Succession". 

Evidence of Canons — Apostolic Succession not a Chain but a set 

— Illustrations — Quotations from Dr. Hopkins — From Bishop 
Neely — Evidence from Early Schismatics, Novatian and For- 
tunatas — From Pagan Writers — From Would-be-bishops, Col- 
luthus, Aerius, his "dogma furiosum et stolidum " — The Six 
General Councils — Archbp. Potter and Lord Macaulay on the 
Fact of Apos. Success, 109-116 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Anglican Church and the ''Fellowship of 
the Apostles." 

Importance of the Catholic Episcopate — Auglican Church Never 
Without It — Early Origin of Christianity in Britain— First Bishop 
of Rome a Britain— Did Sr. Paul Preach in Britain? — Tes- 
timony of Gildas, Fortunatus the Poet; Theodoret, St. Jerome, 
Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, St. Clement — 
Church at Glastonbury — St. Alban, our Proto- martyr — Constan- 
tine — British Bishops at Councils of Aries, Nictea, Sardica, 
Riniine — The Anglo-Saxon Conquest, - - - 117-124 



CONTENTS. 



xiii 



CHAPTER XV. 

PAGE. 

Anglo-Catholicism ; or, the Making and Estab- 
lishing of the Present National Church 
of England. 

The Celtic Churches, Catholic, independent — Queen Bertha and 
Bishop Luidhard — The Italian Mission — Romish errors then 
unknown — Gregory and the title of " Universal Bishop " — Au- 
gustine ordained in France — Saxons converted mainly by 
the Celtic Christians — Canterbury — Two schools of thought — 
Theodore — The unification and establishment of the Anglo- 
Catholic Church long before the State, - - - 125-131 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The English Church never the Roman Church. 

The Ecclesia Anglicana — Lease of Church property for 999 years 

— Mediaeval corruptions — Usurpation of the Bishop of Rome, 
illustrated by Napoleon, Sinbad, etc. — Roman influence slight 
before the Norman Conquest — Wilfrid — Cuthbert — Image- 
worship — Offa — The " Forged Decretals ' ' — Robert and Stigand 

— William and Lanfranc defy the Bishop of Rome — The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury called "the Pope and Patriarch of another 
world"— Anti-Roman legislation — King John — Magna Charta 

— Two reforms necessary : to free the State ; to free the Church 

— The legal freeing of the Church in the Fourteenth Century — 
The prestige of Rome broken — " Rival Popes " — " Reforming 
Councils " — Greek Churchmen — Henry VIII. — The " Gordian 
Knot " — The Bishop of Rome no more than any other " foreign 
Bishop" — Queen Mary and the second subjugation of our 
Church — Accession of Elizabeth, - - 132-144 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Anglican Orders. 

True Catholics — Elizabeth and the Papal usurpation — Vacant 
Bishoprics — Election, confirmation, and consecration of Arch- 
bishop Parker — Overwhelming evidence of the fact — The 
" Nag's Head Fable " — Marc Antonio de Dominis — Irish suc- 
cession— R. C. admissions — American and Colonial succession, 145-159 

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XVII. 
Pius IV. and the English Reformation. 

Hore — Jennings — Cutts — Blunt —Van Antwerp — Butler, - 160-163 



xiv 



CONTENTS. 



chapter xyni. 

PAGE. 

Anglican Jurisdiction and Catholicity. 

Declaration of Lambeth Council — Novelty of the lltramontane 
Theory of Jurisdiction — Inherent Jurisdiction of Provincial 
and Autocephalous Churches -Early English Church Complete 
in Itself — Our Reformers did not Commit the Sin of Schism — 
English Romanists Schismatic — Pius IX. and Westminster — 
English Church never claimed to be Anything but Catholic — 
Quotations from Dr. Coit, and Dr. Seabury — The " Golden Rule 
of Faith," - - 164-176 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Attitude of Dissent Towards Episcopacy. 

Difference Between the Catholic Reformation in England and the 
Protectant Revolutions on the Continent— Changing Attitude 
of Protestants toward Episcopacy — (1) They Believed in It, 
and Regretted their Loss of It; Luther, Melancthon, Beza, Cal- 
vin, etc.— 2) They Blindly and Ignorantly Assailed It: Drs. 
Miller and McCloud — (3- Scholarly Protestant Reaction in Fa- 
vor of It; Drs. Schaff and Fisher; the Concessions of Mosheim, 
Gieseler, etc.— An important consideration, - - - 177-183 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Anglican Church and Confirmation. 

Definition of Confirmation — Practiced by the Apostles — Scriptural 
evidence — Patristic — Retained in the Greek, Roman, and Ang- 
lican Churches — Confirmation not "joining the Church" — 
Protestants feel the need of it, - - - ... 184-193 

CHAPTER XXL 

The Anglican Church and " The Breaking of the 
Bread." 

One true Sacrifice; prefigured in the Jewish Church, commemorated 
in the Christian Church — The Altar — The Eucharist also a 
Communion — What the N. T. says of it — The Fathers — Two 
parts of the Sacrament — Traruuhs! art tiation denies the real 
presence of the Bread and Wine — Zwinglianism denies the real 
presence of Christ's Body and Blot.d — Growth of Transubstan- 
tiation — Forced on the English Church in the thirteenth cen- 
tury — The Catholic Doctrine restored in the sixteenth century 
— Rise of "Half Communion 11 — Declared heresy by three 
Bishops of Rome — Received unwillingly in the English < hurch 
in fifteenth century — The Chalice restored in the sixteenth — 
Growth of the Zwinglian impiety — Nevtr sanctioned in the 
Anglo-Catholic Church, ... - - 194-205 



i 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PAGE. 

" The Prayers." 

Liturgical Worship a Mark of the Church — Jewish Worship: Tern 
pie, Synagogue — The Apostles Trained to Liturgical Worship — 
Endorsed by Christ — Glimpses of Liturgical Worship in the N. 
T.— The Liturgy of the Passover — Oral Liturgy of the Apostles 
— Four Great Types — Parts Common to Each — Worship of the 
Early Church — Pliny, Justin Martyr — Specimen of the Oldest 
Extant Liturgy — Remarkable Agreement of Our Liturgy, - 206-220 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Anglican Church and "The Prayers." 

Our Church Inherited Catholic Worship — Liturgy of St. John — 
British Liturgy — Influence of Augustine ~ The Roman Brev- 
iary and Missal never Used in England — Latin Services — Crea- 
ture-worship — Devotional and Liturgical Reform— The Prayer 
Book of 1549 — Subsequent Revisions — Anglican P. B. dear to 
outsiders — Luther, Calvin, Knox, etc., Believed in Liturgical 
Worship — Amazing Devotions of English and American Dis- 
senters — " Sam. Lawson's" Philosophy of Prayer — Dr. Mines 
— Extemporary Prayer the Work of Jesuits in England — Pro- 
testant Reaction in Favor of Liturgical Worship — Thank God 
for the Prayer Book, 221-229 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

Close of the Argument for the Church's Author- 
ity Based on Historic Continuity. 

Our Church has retained the accessories of Catholic worship — 
Bodily reverence — Scriptural warrant — Usage of Early Church 
— Bowing at the Sacred Name — The Christian Year — Jewish 
Feasts and Fasts — Origin of the Church's Calendar — Retained 
in the Anglo-Catholic Church — So with other things: Ordina- 
tion, Absolution, Church Architecture, Vestments, etc. — Special 
defense of Vestments — Continuity, the key-note of the Anglo- 
Catholic position — Summary of the Historic Argument — 
Charity to non-conformists, - 230-240 



xvi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

PAGE. 

The Argument from Expediency. 

Authority ought to be sufficient — " Prcescriptio in limine" — 
Comparison of the three Systems — The Anglican holds to the 
Past and adapts itself to the Present — All the Elements of true 
Catholicity not only authoritative but practically advantageous 
— Protestant Dissenters adopting the Church's Ways — Two 
noted Tributes to the Church by disinterested Observers — The 
Power of the Historic Church to evoke enthusiastic Love — "The 
Bride of Christ *' — The Catholic Idea, - - - 241-251 



CBAPTEB XXYL 
The Argument from Futurity. 

(I.) Which System has the Brightest Outlook? — Anglican Pros- 
pects Last Century — Revival of Church-life — The Wesleys, the 
•'Evangelical Movement,'" The " Oxford "— Church Growth in 
England and the United States — Prospects of the Anglo-Saxon 
Race and the English Language— An unfair Comparison — An- 
glican Prospects Brighter than Roman — Roman Schism losing 
Ground in England — Dependent on Immigration in the United 
States — The United States the Paradise of Protestantism — Ele- 
ments of Disintegration and Decay — Protestantism about to 
Pass through a Fearful Ordeal — Protestant Paralogism — The 
Churchman has Nothing to Fear. 
(II.) The Anglican Church Surest to Keep the Fa ith —Roman Ad- 
ditions to the Faith Driving Men to Infidelity — " Infallibility,' 1 
What Next'? — Protestantism Losing the Faith (Unitarianism) — 
Lacks the Conservative Orthodoxy of the Church. 
(III.) Which System Offers the Best Basis for the Reunion of Christ- 
endom?— Not the Roman, Unless it Gives Up the Papacy, etc.— 
The Anglican Church a Medium of Reunion — So Acknowledged 
by French Roman Catholics — Catholic and Reformed — Let 
Eomanists Lay Aside Novel Additions, and Protestants Restore 
Omitted Essentials, and they will find themselves Catholics — 
Nothing L'nreasonable is Asked — Summary and Conclusion, 252-266 

bishop jeremy taylor's 
Prayer for the Whole Catholic Church. 



I 



CHAPTER I. 



THE QUESTION STATED. 

"Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the 
hope that is in yon." — 1. St. Peter, iii. 15. 

T^NGLISH speaking Christians are divided into three 
J. j great classes — -Churchmen, Recusants, and Dissenters. 
These terms have established themselves in literature ; and 
without implying any opprobrium, stand for important 
historical facts. 

Churchmen are those who adhere to that old Catholic 
and Apostolic Church which, after sundry deformations, 
and reformations, but without losing its corporate identity, 
its historic continuity, or its divine authority, still main- 
tains primitive faith, order, and worship, and exercises 
lawful jurisdiction throughout the British Empire and the 
American Republic. Churchmen are variously called 
Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics, or Episcopalians. They num- 
ber about 225 Bishops, 30,000 priests, 1 and some 25,000,- 
000 adherents. 

Recusant means Refuser. The term was originally ap- 
plied to those members of the English Church who, after 
the Reformation, refused the Church's ministrations ; and, 



1. Including a small number of Deacons. 



2 REASONS FOE BEING A CHURCHjIAy. 



at the instigation of the Bishop of Rome, formed the first 
English schism. 

The essence of the Reformation in our ilother Church 
was the assertion of her ancient independence of the 
Bishop of Rome, together with the correction of certain 
abuses. The English Bishops, clergy, and laity, as a 
body, acquiesced in the change which was a mere episode 
in the chequered history of Anglo- Catholicism. Out of 
9.400 clergy only 189 refused to accept the new order of 
things. The laity, including those vrho really believed in 
the Papacy, were quietly settling down in the freed ancL 
purified Church of England ;' 2 when in the year 1570, the 
Bishop of Rome, Pius V., lost his temper, and com- 
manded the " faithful " to withdraw from the English 
Church. A mere handful obeyed his mandate ; and leav- 
ing the ancient Catholic Church of their country, formed 
the Roman Schism or Italian Mission in England. That 
they were conscientious in so doing we cannot doubt. 
They have borne up bravely against civil persecutions, and 
manifold difficulties ; but have made almost no impression 
on the nation at large, and are now relatively losing 
ground. It was only as late as 1850 that they effected a 
regular organization in England with diocesan Bishops 
and a full Roman hierarchy. In Ireland, however, owing 
mainly to political causes, the Italian Mission was more 
successful and drew away a large majority of the laity, 

2. "For diverse years in Queen Elizabeth's reign there was no Recusant 
known in England; but even they who were most addicted to Roman opinions, 
yet frequented our Churches and public assemblies, and did join with us in the 
use of the same prayers and divine offices, without any scruple, till they were 
prohibited by a papal bull for the interest of the Roman Court."— Archbishop 
Bhamhall. I. 248. 



AUTHORITY. 



3 



but not many of the clergy, of the venerable Church of 
St. Patrick's planting. 3 

Such is the position of the Kecusants or Refusers of 
Anglo-Catholic reform. They are variously styled Roman- 
ists, Roman Catholics or Papists. They have intruded 
also into the jurisdiction of the American Church, and 
have many adherents, mainly Irish and Germans. 

The third division of English-speaking Christians com- 
prises the Dissenters. As Romanists objected to the Eng- 
lish Reformation because they thought it had gone too 
far, so certain others, who had imbibed the novelties of 
German Protestants and French Calvinists, objected be- 
cause, forsooth, they fancied it had not been sweeping 
enough. At first they were few in number, and for the 
most part remained in communion with the Church — 
which even to this day shelters in her bosom many whose 
real sympathies lie with those who went out from her. 

Recusants and Dissenters alike left their Mother Church, 
but with this distinction: the former in seceding placed 
themselves under the jurisdiction of a foreign Bishop, the 
Italian Pontiff ; while the latter broke altogether with the 
Church of the past, cast aside all ecclesiastical authority, 
organized themselves into new voluntary societies — not at 
first calling them churches, though they have since come 
to do so — and ordained their ministers by the authority 
of the congregation. The action of the Recusants was 
schism; that of the Dissenters, sectarianism. 

3. Of all the Irish Bishops (and there were a great many of thern for the size 
of the country), only two, Walsh, Bishop of JVleath, and Leverous, Bishop of 
Kildare, refused to accept the Reformation, and left the "Church of Ireland. 11 
The rest remained in the old Church, and the Bishops of the present " Church of 
Ireland 1 ' are their successors. 



4 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



It is not my purpose to describe the different dissenting 
communions. The principle of sectism once introduced 
is fruitful of sub-division — like a fresh-water Poly-pus it 
multiplies by u fission " in a geometrical ratio. The Pres- 
byterians left us in 1573. The Brownists or Independents, 
afterward called Congregationalists, began to secede ten 
years later. They were followed by the Baptists, the 
Quakers, the Methodists, etc., etc., for their name is legion, 
There are now nearly 150 dissenting bodies in England, 
and while the actual number of Dissenters is diminishing, 
the number of sects into which they are splitting up is 
constantly on the increase. 4 Even the Methodist body 
which began but a century ago has already broken up 
into at least 25 distinct denominations. In the United 
States the fragmentary and disintegrated character of 
Christianity is simply appalling. 

All these denominations, of course, differ among them- 
selves ; but from a Church standpoint they may be classi- 
fied together as having certain general characteristics, viz: 
the breaking away from the historic Church, the rejection 
of the Apostolic Ministry — with a special disbelief both 
in the Episcopate and the Christian Priesthood — a lower- 
ing or distortion or even abolition of the Sacraments, a re- 
jection of Common Prayer and impressive seiwices in 
place of which are substituted much preaching and the 
extemporaneous devotions of a leader, the abandonment 
of the Christian Year which is so precious and profitable 
to us, and finally a great confusion in doctrine occasioned 
sometimes by elevating philosophical systems to the place 



4. See ft Cutt's Turning Points in Eng. Ch. Hist., ,, p. 317. 



AUTHORITY. 



5 



of dogma, and again, as in the case of the Unitarians, by 
actual apostacy from the fundamentals of the Christian 
religion. 

The Dissenters are variously styled Nonconformists, 
Separatists, Sectarians, or, from an Anglo-Catholic stand- 
point, Protestants, as protesting against the old historic 
Church. They number about one-fourth of the English, 
the major part of the Scotch among whom Presbyterian- 
ism is established by law, a small proportion of the Irish, 
and a vast majority of American Christians. 

To one or other of these three great classes of Christians 
we all belong, many of us perhaps without being able to 
justify our position or to give a reason for the hope that is 
in us. It is my purpose to state as simply, clearly, and 
accurately as I can, the chief reasons for being Church- 
men instead of being Romanists, or Dissenters — and this 
I do with the prayer for divine guidance, " with charity for 
all, with malice toward none" 

The first question is : Did God found an universal 
Church which claims the allegiance of mankind? Does 
that Church anywhere exist in its essential purity, and if 
so, does the Anglican Church fulfill the requirements? 
This may be called the argument from authority, and is 
based on an appeal to history. 5 

The second consideration is that of present expediency, 
based on the comparative merits of the three systems so 
far as their practical methods of worship, teaching and 
work are concerned. 



5. "It may be asserted without fear of contradiction that the whole case of 
the Romanising movement on the one side and of popular Protestantism on the 
other, rests upon perversions of history.' 1 — (English) Ch. Times. 



6 



REASONS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



The third argument, or argument from futurity, will be 
drawn from a consideration of future prospects. Which 
system is likeliest to be the basis for restoring the broken 
unity of Christendom, and likeliest to hold the Faith till 
the Master comes ? 

Our theme then is : The Church, her authority derived 
from the past, her present advantages, and her future prospects. 



CHAPTER II. 

DID GOD FOUND A CHURCH WHICH STILL EXISTS ? 
["Ab origine mundi incipiens."] 

TT ought not to be necessary to ask this question. But 
it is. The raison d'etre of man-made churches, the 
only possible justification of dissent, must logically be the 
assumption either that God did not found a Church, or 
else that the Church He founded has perished from the 
earth. Now, if it can be shown that God did found a 
Church which still exists, surely no one can fail to see his 
personal duty with reference to it. 

Our first parents, even before they fell into sin, were ad- 
mitted into covenant relation with God, which was the 
germ of all subsequent ecclesiastical dispensations. " Eden 
was an enclosure from the outside world, the Church 
where the Son of God personally met man and told him 
of his duty of faith and obedience, and of the penalty that 
would follow unbelief and disobedience. That Church 
was the root of Christianity, and it was designed to pass 
through several stages of development before it attained 
its maturity." 1 

After the fall of man God continued that Church, but 



1. Dr. C C. Adams in Am. Ch. Rev., Oct., 1884. 



S REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



altered its character to suit the changed relation between 
Him and His now disobedient children. Sin had destroyed 
the sweet communion of Eden, and in its place God ap- 
pointed a Covenant of Redemption, based on the sacrificial 
death of the promised Seed of the woman who should 
bruise the serpent's head, the Lamb of God who, in the 
knowledge and purpose of the Almighty, was "the Lamb 
slain from the foundation of the world." 2 All history, 
ancient or modern, centres in the Incarnation and sacrifice 
of the Son of God ; and so, from the offering of righteous 
Abel to the latest Eucharistic Oblation upon the Table of 
the Lord, Sacrifice has ever been the chief characteristic of 
God's Church ; while even the heathen who left the wor- 
ship of the true God, never entirely lost the God-given 
conviction that without the shedding of blood there is no 
remission of sin. 

Thus the Church of the Patriarchal Dispensation was 
ushered in, and as we read in Gen. iv. 3 26, " Then began 
men to call on the name of the Lord." Before the flood, 
however, dissent in its worst form, as utter apostasy, pre- 
vailed to a greater extent than at any subsequent period. 
The " Sons of Men " so far outnumbered the " Sons of 
God," that the Church was narrowed down to one family 
of but eight souls. After the flood God renewed His 
Covenant with man in the person of Noah ; and again in 
the case of Abraham, at which time He appointed an ad- 
ditional rite for the initiation of infants and of adult con- 
verts into His Church, viz : Circumcision. At the same 
time he cut off the apostate races, so that the Church was 



2. Rev., xiii., 8. 



AUTHORITY. 



9 



continued in the family of Abraham, whose descendants 
in the line of his grandson, Jacob, became the tl chosen 
people," whose great work in history was the keeping alive 
the worship of Jehovah in the midst of an idolatrous 
World, in order that there might be one orthodox nation 
of which, according to the flesh, the Son of God should be 
born, and which should form the nucleous of anew, higher, 
world-wide and eternal Dispensation which God was about 
to introduce. 

God's revelation of Himself and the building up of His 
Kingdom of Grace on the earth have been progressive. 
We have seen something of the Patriarchal Dispensation 
in which the priesthood was vested in the eldest son. A 
great step was made in the development of revealed 
religion, when God through Moses gave Israel the Deca- 
logue and the Ceremonial Law. From that time to the 
coming of Christ no Christian can deny that there has 
existed on the earth an organization fully entitled to be 
called the Church of God. As under the previous Dispensa- 
tion, so here, sacrifices typifying the one great Sacrifice to 
come, were the most notable feature of the Church. 
u Gather my saints together unto me," saith the Lord, 
" those that have made a covenant with me with sacri- 
fice." 3 God, moreover, gave explicit directions as to the 
polity and worship of the Jewish Church. " See thou 
make ail things according to the pattern showed thee in 
the mount." 4 Instead of the Patriarchal Priesthood there 
was now established a Ministerial Succession in three orders 
in the tribe of Levi — the High Priest, the Priests and the 
Levites. And when once God had ordained this ministry, 



3. Ps., I., 5. 4. Heb., viii., 5. 



10 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



He showed that He meant it to be sacred and exclusive 
by making a fearful example of those who presumed to 
usurp its functions. Witness Korah, Dathan, and Abiram 5 ; 
or Saul 6 . Uzzah 7 , and Uzziah 8 ; and when, after the 
secession and schism of the ten Northern tribes, Jeroboam 
intruded into the Priestly Office men who were not of the 
house of Aaron, we read, " this became a sin unto the house 
of Jeroboam, to cut it off and to destroy it from the face 
of the earth." 9 

In the matter of public worship in the Jewish Church, 
we see clearly that God recognizes — w T hat modern Protes- 
tants have affected to ignore — the material as well as the 
spiritual side of human nature ; for He ordained in the 
Tabernacle and Temple worship, a grand, stately, ornate, 
symbolic office of sacrifice and thanksgiving, of prayer and 
praise — a liturgic service the most ritualistic the world has 
ever seen, or that in all probability we ever shall see, until 
with angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven 
we join in the celestial ritual of the Triumphant Church. 
Bodily reverence accompanied the devotion of the heart. 
There was the mitred High Priest resplendent in purple 
and gold ; there were the white-robed Priests and Levites, 
and the singers with their accompanying instruments ; 
there were the Holy of Holies, the Ark with its overshad- 
owing Cherubim, the altar of incense, the golden Candle- 
sticks, the table of Shew-bread, the great Altar of Sacrifice, 
and, all about, the prostrate multitudes worshipping the 
God and Father of all. 

The Jewish Church had also its God-given ecclesiastical 



5. Numbers, xvi. G. I. Samuel, xiii., 9-15. 7. II. Samuel, vi., G-7. 8. II. 
Chronicles, xxvi., 16-21. 9. I. Kings, xiii., 34. 



AUTHORITY. 



11 



year y/ith its round of Holy Days — the three great Festi- 
vals, the Solemn Fast Day of Atonement, the Minor Feasts, 
and the fifty-two Sabbaths. 

Later on, probably in the time of Ezra, there grew up 
also, under divine approval, if not by direct command, the 
system of Synagogue worship and instruction, with its 
eighteen Collects, its versicles and responses, its singing, 
its reading of Scripture Lessons, and the preaching and 
expounding of God's word. 10 

Such was the Jewish Church, with its long line of 
Prophets, Priests and Kings ; Martyrs and Confessors ; 
holy men and saintly women ; and the little children who 
were also admitted into the Covenant, who, like Samuel, 
were " given unto the Lord." u These all died in faith, 
not having received the promises, but having seen them 
afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, 
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on 
the earth." 11 And yet, as glorious as was that Church, as 
exalted in point of privilege as were the saints of old, we 
read that God had " provided some better things for us, 
that they without us should not be made perfect. 5 ' 12 Yes, 
this Church was not a final Dispensation. It was a type 
of an ultimate and glorious one to come. " The Law was 
our Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." 13 The root of 
the olive was there, but new branches were to be grafted 
into it. 14 The Jewish Church was National. It is true, 
Gentiles, who abandoned their Paganism, might enter it 
through the door of circumcision ; yet it was not, as then 
constituted, adapted for universal dominion. But all the 



10. Geikie's Life of Christ, Chap. xiii. 11. Hebrews, xi., 13. 12. Hebrews 
xi., 40. 13. Galatians, iii, 24. 14. Romans, xi., 17-24. 



12 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCH M AN. 



while the Prophets used to sing of a Coming Era, when 
Zion should lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes. 

Bear in mind that the point here to be proved is that 
God founded a Church which still exists. I have shown 
that God did have a Church in the days of old, the Jewish 
Church. It is now my purpose to show that Christ did 
not change the divine plan by abrogating the Church as a 
visible organism, but that He continued it, only on a higher 
plane rendered possible by virtue of the Incarnation. The 
old Dispensation was but the shadow of good things to 
come. The first step in proving the existence of the Christ- 
ian Church is a priori, that is to say, we gather from tha 
types and prophecies of the Jewish Church the presump- 
tion and promise of the Catholic Church. If God saw 
that it was best to embody His revelation of old in an 
organized society with a threefold Priesthood, rites and 
ceremonies, it is fair to presume that He would continue the 
Church in the Christian Dispensation on the same general 
principles This presumption, however, becomes a, promise 
when we open the treasury of divine prophecy. The 
prophecies of the Catholic Church in the Old Testament 
are intimately associated with the predictions of the com- 
ing Messiah. To give the tenth part of the prophecies 
which taught that the Jewish Church should widen into 
an universal Church, would require more space than is at 
my command. But this was the meaning of God's words 
when he said to Abraham : " In thy seed shall all the 
nations of the earth be blessed/' 15 Such, too, was the testi- 
mony of the dying Patriarch, Jacob, when he said of Christ, 
" Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be," 16 — the 



15. Genesis, xxii., IS. 1G. Genesis, xlix., 10. 



AUTHORITY. 



IS 



same truth which the Holy Ghost spake through the Sweet 
Singer of Israel, "Ask of Me, and I will give thee the 
heathen for thy inheritance and the uttermost parts of the 
earth for thy possession," 17 and again: "All kings shall fal] 
•down before Him ; all nations shall do Him service," 18 the 
truth which Isaiah perceived when he cried out : " Lift 
up thine eyes round about and see ; all they gather them- 
selves together, they come to Thee. The forces of the Gen- 
tiles shall be converted unto Thee." 19 This truth pervades 
all holy prophecy, but is, perhaps, most clearhf S et forth 
in Daniel's vision of the stone cut out without hands, which 
smote the image and became a mountain, and filled the 
whole earth. 20 This, Daniel interpreted to mean that in the 
days of the fourth kingdom (the Roman Empire) " shall 
the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never 
be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other 
people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these 
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." 21 And again he says 
he looked, and " Behold one like unto the Son. of Man came 
with the clouds of heaven * * * and there was given 
unto him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all peo- 
ple, nations, and languages should serve him." 22 Yes, from 
that far off antiquity, as from a lofty mountain top, the 
holy Prophets, with the eye of Inspiration, saw the nar- 
row covenant of Judaism widening into the Church Cath- 
olic throughout the world — saw by faith what we now see 
with the eye of sense, the universal and everlasting king- 
dom of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Buoyed up by this hope, the Saints of the old Dispen- 



17. Psalms, ii., 8. 18. Ps., lxxii; Read the whole Psalm. 10. Is., Ix. 20, 
Dan., ii., 34-5. 21. Dan., ii., 44. 22. Dan., vii., 13-14- 



14 REASONS FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



sation clung to their Church, looking for the " Consolation 
of Israel n and the ingathering of the Gentiles. 

Eighteen hundred and eighty-six years ago Christ was 
born — the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men ; 
God stooped to earth to redeem, to sanctify and to save 
mankind. We have seen that God's plan of saving men is 
not merely as individuals, but in and through an organized 
society. And so just before our blessed Lord began His 
ministry, St. John the Baptist, the Morning Star of Christ- 
ianity, preached, saying, 4> The Kingdom of God is at hand." 
Notice he did not teach that the Church idea of religion 
was to be done away so that there should no longer be a 
visible organization. On the contrary he, the Forerunner 
of Christ, prepared the hearts of the people to receive the 
religion of Christ, not as an abstract philosophy, but as a 
Kingdom — and that word implies more strongly than any 
other could do, that the Christian Dispensation was to be 
an organized authoritative body, ' ; a city that is at unity 
with itself/' a state having God-given laws and divinely 
commissioned officers. In short, the Kingdom of God 
which St. John Baptist proclaimed to be at hand, can 
only mean the Catholic Church. This we shall find was 
the teaching of the great Head of the Church Himself; 
and the Apostles at His command, preached Christianity, 
not as a sentiment, but as a kingdom; not as an abstract- 
faith, but a faith indissolubly blended with an organized 
and sovereign institution, the church of the living god, 

THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH. 23 



28. I. Tim., iii., 15. 



CHAPTER III. 



DID CHRIST FOUND A CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH STILL EXISTS? 

On this Rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it.— Words of Christ. 



UIZOT has said, " Christianity came into the world as 



VJ an idea to be developed." Christianity did nothing of the 
kind. The Christian " idea " of which the learned French- 
man speaks can only mean the truth which Christ re- 
vealed, which was definite and complete, the " faith which 
was once for all 1 delivered to the Saints." And that was 
given to develop men, not to be developed by men. (It 
is not our duty to develop the faith, but, by the grace of 
God, to develop ourselves in the faith.) According to our 
Lord's teaching that Faith was embodied in a visible 
organism, which He calls His Church, or His Kingdom. 
Indeed the Faith is so identified with the Church that 
Christ calls His Gospel the Gospel of the Kingdom. The 
Church is an integral part of the Faith, and a belief in the 
Church is an article of the Apostolic Creed, 

Observe, then, the teaching of our Divine Master. He 
began His ministry by au thoritatively repeating the words 
of St. John Baptist. For we read (St. Mark, i: 14), "Jesus 




1. St. Jude, i., 3. See Revised Version. 



16 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom 
of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the King- 
dom of Heaven is at hand." 7 Later on, after He had ap- 
pointed the twelve Apostles, He says to the multitude: 
'■No doubt the Kingdom of God is come upon you." 2 
Though our Lord occasionally uses Kingdom to mean 
Heaven, and perhaps once or twice to mean His spiritual 
dominion in our hearts, yet more than nine times out of 
ten it means simply His Church in the world, the Empire 
He was founding on the earth, but not of the earth. Out 
of His thirty-two recorded parables, nineteen are " parables 
of the Kingdom." More than half of His discourses 
were what some people now-a-days would call " Churchly." 
But He spake with authority. Notice a few of the won- 
derful prophetic parables which bring out the visible 
character of Christ's Church. 

In one He likens the Church to a field of wheat and 
tares which grow together until the harvest, 3 showing 
that the Church while on earth will contain good and bad, 
and that it is wrong to make separations in the Church 
even for so laudable a purpose as to weed out the un- 
worthy. And this phase of the Church, its unity even at 
the cost of having some bad men in it, He emphasizes by 
an additional parable, that of the Net, 4 — u which tells us 
how the Church, having swept through the ages from one 
end of the world to the other, will finally land those 
whom it has caught on the shore of eternity, and there the 
separation shall take place." The parable of the Mustard 
Seed, 5 shows the Catholic or universal extent of the 



2. St. Luke, xi., 20. 3. St. Mat., xiii.,25. 4. St. Mat., xiii., 47. 5. St. Mat., 
xiii., 31. 



AUTHORITY. 



IT 



Church. That of the Vine and its Branches, 6 our Lord's 
last and crowning parable of His Kingdom, shows that 
His Church is a visible organism which, like a plant, how- 
ever complex, has a unity dependent on the branches 
remaining in physical vital connection with the root. Some 
of our Lord's parables refer to doctrine, some to morals, 
some to individual religious experiences ; but I challenge 
any one to show a parable which teaches that His Church 
is not one, visible and Catholic, or which can possibly justify 
the k< developments " of Romanism or the separations of 
Protestanism. He prays for the unity of all Christians, 
"that they may be one." 7 He says of the sheep that 
hear His voice, " There shall be one fold and one Shep- 
herd." 8 He admits that " the wolf" may catch the sheep, 
or scatter the sheep ; 9 but not that the wolf or any one 
else may construct a new fold, much less three or four 
hundred new folds, for the flock of which He Himself is 
the Good Shepherd, and for which He has already built 
the " one fold." The first miraculous draught of fishes 10 
implies that the " Net " may break and some of the fishes 
slip out through the breach ; but not that the Great Net 
may be made over into little hand nets, or that the fishes 
who swim back into the lake are still in the Net, or 
surrounded, forsooth, by an " invisible net." 

But in addition to the figurative language in which 
Christ illustrates the unity, the visibility, and the 
authority of His Kingdom, He gives what a learned priest 

6. St. John, xv., 5. 7. St. John, xvii., 21. 

8. St. John, x., 16. The rendering "one flock " instead of one fold, adapted 
by the Revisers, scarcely alters the metaphor at all, and certainly does not in the 
slightest degree affect the argument. 

9. St. John, x., 12. 10. St. Luke, v., 6. 

2 



IS REASONS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



has well called " a prophecy of the foundation of the 
Church, of its endless duration, and of the name by which 
it should be called." When St. Peter confessed the 
Divinity of Christ, what said the Son of God ? " On this 
rock I will build MY CHURCH and the gates of Hell shall 
not prevail against it." 11 Again He says as a matter of dis- 
cipline in the case of an erring brother : " Tell it to the 
Church, but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be 
unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.*' 12 

A still clearer view of the origin of the Church, will be 
obtained if we notice the steps which Christ took to found 
and organize it. One of His first acts was to choose, out of 
the whole body of His Disciples, twelve men to whom He 
made known the "mysteries of the Kingdom of God." 13 
He called them Apostles, and sent them forth to preach — 
what? "The Kingdom of God/' u On the night in which 
He was betrayed, at that most solemn moment, immedi- 
ately after the institution of the Lord's Supper, He told 
them plainly of the dignity and authority of the office to 
which He had elevated them in His Church: "I appoint 
unto you a Kixgdom, as My Father hath appointed unto 
Me, that ye may eat and drink at My Table in My King- 
dom, and sit on thrones, judging the Twelve Tribes of 
Israel." 15 The Twelve thus raised by Christ Himself to 



11. St. Matthew, xvi., 18. See the masterly exposition of this passage by 
Dr. J. H. Hopkins in the American Church Rev ew, October, 1884. 

12. St. Matthew, xviii., IT. 13. St. Lnke, viii., 10. 14. St. Luke, viii., 1, and 
ix., 2. 

15. St. Luke, xxii., 29. Christ appointed also TO men called "Elders," and 
sent them to preach the "Kingdom" (St. Luke, x., 1 and 9). It is an open ques- 
tion whether they constituted the nucleus of the Presbyterate to which the 
Apostles added others by ordination; or whether theirs was a temporary com- 
mission. I incline to the former view. 



AUTHORITY. 



19 



pre-eminence in the Church were of equal rank and power. 
To borrow the words of Dr. Mahan : " In their relations to 
one another, they were { brothers,' colleagues, peers. They 
called no man ' father ? on the earth. 16 According to the 
type of the Old Theocracy, a c Kingdom ' was given to 
them, but the Head was to be invisible till the time of the 
final 6 appearing and kingdom ' of Jesus Christ." 

After His resurrection from the dead, when in His 
Human nature as well as in His Divine, He could say: " All 
power is given unto Me in Heaven and in Earth," 17 He 
said to the Apostles : "As My Father hath sent Me, so 
send I you." He endued them with a power such as no 
Priesthood had ever before received, the power of Abso- 
lution ; for " He breathed on them and said : c Eeceive the 
Holy Ghost ; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are re- 
tained." 18 At the same time He issued that far-reaching 
and tremendous command : " Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved." 19 And lastly, 
when He was about to re-ascend into Heaven, He gave 
them their final and perpetual commission : " Go ye 
therefore and make disciples (i. e. make Christians) of all 
nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, I 
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. 

AMEN." 20 

The phrases, " All the world," "Every creature," "All 



16. St. Matthew, xxiii., 9. 17. St. Matthew, xxviii., 18. 18. St. John, xx., 
21-23. 19. St. Mark, xvi., 15-16. 20. St. Matthew, xxviii., 19-20. 



20 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



nations/' show that the Church is Catholic. They prove 
also incontrovertibly that the Apostolic Ministry is to be 
perpetuated in the Church, for the individuals to whom the 
command was given, could not go personally into all the 
world. And this fact our Lord enforces by His promise to 
be with the Apostles — how long? Till the end of their 
natural lives ? That would have been ten years in the 
case of St. James, and sixty years in the case of St. John. 
No, it was longer than that. Mark His words, for there is 
no evading them : " Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the exd of the world." Here, then, we have the 
whole subject of Apostolic Succession in a single clause. 
Christ ordains the Apostles, sends them into all the world, 
and promises to be with them to an age which has not yet 
come — nay, which still lies beyond the reach of Arch- 
angels' ken. And what does this prove ? Why, it proves 
just this : That in ordaining the Apostles He did more 
than commission twelve men for their natural lives. He 
created the Apostolic Episcopate, a self-perpetuating Hier- 
archy, like the tree of creation " yielding fruit after his 
kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth." 21 He knew 
that His Church would need Overseers through all the 
ages ; and so He established a Ministerial Succession, 
instinct with a perennial vitality, not to be impaired by 
the suicide of Judas, nor diminished when blessed James 
is slain with the sword. What matters it though St. 
Thomas be flayed alive in India, and gentle Andrew 
crucified in Greece ? Though the aged Peter " stretch 
forth his hands," and the beloved Disciple, last of the 
twelve, breathe out his pure spirit in the Episcopal 



21. Genesis, i., 11. 



AUTHORITY. 



21 



Mansion of Ephesus ? It matters not. God had promised 
to be with His Apostles to the end of the world ; and God 
has been with them, and is with them still. We shall see 
how that little company of Apostolic Bishops ordained 
not only the two lower orders of Priests and Deacons, but 
imparted by the "laying on of hands, " all the permanent 
grace and authority of their own Office to their successors 
— who form a line of Princes in the Church of God, com- 
pared with which the oldest dynasty of Europe is but the 
child of a day, and which numbers at this hour nearly 
two thousand Bishops throughout the world. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE PENTECOSTAL CHURCH. 

"Christ's Church was holiest in her youthful days, 
Ere the world on her smiled." 

—Lyra Apostolica, p. 175. 

"Quis nobis ddbit videre Ecclesiam sicut erat in diebus antiquisf—ST. 
Beexaed. 

IX assigning reasons for being a Churchman, the first 
thing to be proved is that Christ founded a Church 
which still exists. That He did found a Church with a 
self-perpetuating ministry, with definite faith, and with 
sacraments and ordinances, has been shown from His own 
words and His own acts. The question whether His 
Church still exists ought to be sufficiently answered for 
any one who believes in Christ, by His promise that 
against His Church the gates of hell shall not prevail, and 
that He will be with the ministry of His Church even 
unto the end of the world. Nevertheless, to make assur- 
ance doubly sure, let us look at the Apostolic Church, that 
we may see in what way the blessed apostles carried out 
the divine plan, what are the essential marks or character- 
istics impressed on the Church by Apostolic hands, and 
whether these essentials have, through all the ages, been 
preserved in the Catholic Church of the English speaking 
race. 



AUTHORITY. 



23 



Christ Himself left no written word ; what He com- 
manded can be learned only from what the Apostles did. 
If, at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon had been known 
io summon twelve generals to headquarters to receive in- 
structions from him; and forthwith the twelve generals, in 
all parts of the battlefield, had begun and carried out a 
definite plan of concerted action^ who would doubt that that 
was what the great leader had commanded ? Behold 
then, in the concerted action of the Apostles, and in the 
uniform faith, order and worship of the early Church, the 
mandates of the Church's Head ! 

The first recorded act of the Apostles shows as clearly 
as anything could show it, that the Apostleship of the 
Church was not to be confined to the original twelve. For 
the Apostles and 109 brethren who constituted the 
membership of the Church in Jerusalem ("the number 
of the names together was about 120 "J 1 under divine 
guidance chose Matthias to "take part of this ministry 
and Apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell," 2 
thus fulfilling the prophesy of David ; " His Bishopric 
let another take." 3 

The Lord had told the Apostles to tarry in Jerusalem 
until they should be " endued with power from on 
high." They waited in prayer, which the Church repro- 
duces each year between Ascension and Whitsun-Day, 
and then when they were all assembled with one accord in 
one place, God, the Holy Ghost, came down from heaven 
to quicken, inspire, guide, teach, and comfort them, and 
to be the Vice-gerent of Christ on earth, until He shall 
come again. Thus the dead organism of the Church was 



1. Acts, i., 15. 2. id., 25. 3. id., 20. 



24 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



quickened into a New-creation, just as into the spiritless 
body of Adam, God breathed the breath of life, and man 
became a living soul. Then was preached the first 
Christian sermon, and 3,000 hearts were smitten, and the 
cry arose : " What shall we do to be saved? " Then that 
staunch Churchman. St. Peter, replied (in words which 
show that God's plan for bringing men into the Church 
Triumj3hant in Heaven, is by membership in His Church 
Militant upon Earth): " Repent and be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission, 
of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." 
Repentance from sin, Baptism into the Faith of the Son 
of God. How exactly this agrees with the recorded teach- 
ing of Christ, Who not only demanded repentance and 
faith, but ordained Baptism or the New Birth of Water 
and the Spirit, as the door of His Church, the means by 
which all nations were to be made disciples, and without 
which none should enter into His Kingdom. Then " they 
that gladly received the word were baptized " to the 
number of 3,000. 

Here then we have a picture of the Church — with its 
twelve Apostolic Bishops and about 3,108 members. They 
were not a mere voluntary society or debating club, 
but a divinely organized Church, indwelt by the Spirit of 
God. Every baptized member had, by virtue of his Bap- 
tism, been cleansed from all his sins past, endued with 
grace, and admitted to certain privileges and duties. The 
twelve Overseers of this Church had received power from 
Christ Himself to Baptize, to celebrate a Sacrificial Mem- 
orial of Christ's death (of which more anon), to teach with 
authority whatsoever He had commanded them, to sit up- 



AUTHORITY. 



25 



on thrones judging the tribes of Christ's Church, His 
spiritual Israel, and to keep alive that Apostolic Ministry 
even unto the end of the world. Such was the Catholic 
Church in Jerusalem, our Holy Mother, on the tenth day 
after the Ascension of the Lord. 

I gave at the start a picture of the present aspect of 
Christianity among the English-speaking race. Wherein 
does it differ from the picture we have just seen? The 
only important difference is just this : In that Church 
there was no Romanism, and consequently no Protestant- 
ism. All was truth and oneness, peace and beauty and 
joy— in a word, Catholicity. And who, ! who would wish 
to mar that fair picture, to shatter that stately image? 
Who would presume to sew scarlet patches on the vesture 
of Christ, or worse still — which even the soldiers of Pilate 
would not do — to rend that seamless robe ? We have, in 
these days, grown so accustomed, on the one hand, to the 
usurpations of the Bishop of Rome, and the additions 
which Trent and the Vatican have made to the primitive 
Faith ; and on the other hand, so accustomed to the lop- 
ping off of the articles of that Faith, to the manufacture of 
new churches (of which there are now nearly 400), and 
the breaking up of Christianity, that we have become 
hardened to the scene which Christendom presents to-day, 
and over which the angels weep. Do you want to see 
these innovations in all their hideousness ? Then, imagine 
them, if you can, breaking out all at once, like the boils 
of Egypt or the leprosy of Gehazi on the Pentecostal 
Church. 

Nothing, indeed, will so help one to realize the Catho- 
licity of the primitive Church, as to try, by a violent effort 



26 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



of the imagination, to fit the pseudo-Catholicity of Rome 
or the anti-Catholicity of Protestant Dissent upon the 
Apostolic Church. The first is like taking the Apollo 
BelviJere and decking it out with coat and hat and cane; 
the second is like shattering the image and mounting 
each fragment on a separate pedestal. 

As to the first, fancy St. Peter, who had just missed be- 
ing expelled from the ministry, when the Lord said to 
him -} " Get thee behind me. Satan ! " who had fallen 
lower than any of his brethren by his threefold denial of 
Christ ; who had been restored to an equal footing with 
the rest by the special grace of Christ, but not without 
special warnings ; fancy him — with the words of Christ 
to the whole twelve ringing in his ears ;, Call no man Father 
for ye are brethren, and rebuking them for the slightest 
rivalry among themselves— fancy him sitting on the Altar 
Table of that upper room, the infant Cathedral of Jeru- 
salem, putting a crown upon his head, and saying : I am 
the Infallible Head of the Church ! the vicar of Christ, a 
Bishop of Bishops ! while John and James, the Elders and 
the holy brethren rejoice to kiss his foot ! But this is no 
exaggeration ; it is precisely what one of the successors of 
the Apostles, the pretended successor of St. Peter, actually 
as well as metaphorically demands of his brethren to- 
day. 

Norifi this all. Fancy those early Christians, their hearts 
aflame with the love of God and the worship of Christ, 
fancy them taking the gentle, lowly Virgin Mother (who 
depends for her salvation on the merits of Christ as much 
as any child of Adam), and putting her in her Son's place, 



1. St. Matt, xvL 23. 



AUTHORITY. 



27 



as an object of worship, as the " Mediatrix " between God 
and man ! Assuredly, like blessed Paul and Barnabas, 
when the Priest of Jupiter would do them sacrifice, she 
would have cried out : " Sirs, why do ye these things ? 
* * * Turn from these vanities unto the living God." 

Nor is this all. Picture to your minds the first Cel- 
ebration of the Holy Eucharist, when the newly baptized 
make their first Communion. They kneel about the Holy 
Table ; perchance St. John, who lay on his Master's bosom, 
makes the Memorial before God, uttering the awful prayer 
of Consecration. He breaks the Bread, " the Communion 
of the Body of Christ,'' and blesses the '* Cup of Bless- 
ing, the Communion of the Blood of Christ;" 2 he has repeated 
the words of the Lord, not only " Take, Eat, this is My 
Body ; " but, " Drink all ye of this, for this is My Blood ; " 
he remembers the words of Christ at Capernaum : 3 Except 
ye drink the Blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you ; 
he himself receives under both kinds, but to the kneeling 
Apostles and brethren he gives only the Consecrated 
Bread, he withholds the Chalice, he mutilates the Blessed 
Sacrament, he disobeys his God, he robs the sheep ! Who 
does not turn away from that picture in horror, as a cari- 
cature of the early Church ? Nevertheless, these three 
things, the Supremacy and Infallibility of the pretended 
successor of St. Peter, the worship of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, and the denial of the Cup to all but the ministering 
Priest, these three things, which are the chief differentia of 
Romanism, are required to-day by that part of the 
Catholic Church, which claims to be the only true and 
Catholic part. 



2. 1, Cor., x., 16. 3. St. John, vi., 53. 



REASON'S FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Nor will the multi-cloven foot of Protestantism fit the 
crystal slipper of primitive Catholicity one whit better. 

Fancy a certain section of the brethren saying : ''It is 
enough to have the Elders over us; down with the order 
of Apostles ! Let us break their bands asunder, and cast 
their cords from us." And so they leave the Church, and 
make the Presbyterian fold. Fancy another set saying : 
;> We don't want even Elders who claim any divinely given 
authority : 1 Ye take too much upon yourselves, ye sons 
of Levi, seeing all the congregation is holy.' " And so 
they leave the Church, appoint their ministers by the 
authority of the congregation, and erect the u Congrega- 
tional " or " Independent " folds. 

Others object to the worship and the Sacraments which 
the Apostles, at Christ's command, have established. One 
faction abolishes Confirmation or the Laying on of Hands 
(which the Holy Ghost declares to be a part of the foun- 
dation of the Gospel of Christ). 4 Another decides that 
once a month, once a season, once a year or not at all, is 
often enough for the Holy Eucharist. Another restricts 
the Sacrament of Holy Baptism to a small minority of man- 
kind, and to a singular and arbitrary mode of administra- 
tion. Another says : "Away with it altogether ! " Still 
others say : " There is no visible Church, or mystical 
Body of Christ; we can make as good a Church as God 
Himself.*' Accordingly small coteries of the brethren take 
each some one doctrine which all hold in common, and 
make a special a church " to emphasize that one point at 
the expense of other truths equally vital. 



4. Heb., vi M l 2. 



AUTHORITY. 



29 



Again, others assail the rule of Faith, the £< Form of 
Sound Words " 5 which the Apostles together inculcate, 
the heirloom of the Church, the Apostolic Creed. And 
here one phase of Protestantism fits the early Church so 
badly as to be positively ludicrous. One says : " I don't 
want a Creed imposed by Apostolic authority. Away 
with it ! The Bible and the Bible only is my religion. 
Give me the New Testament." But lo ! St. Matthew rises 
and says : "My brother, I am the author of the first Gos- 
pel, but I shall not begin to write it for twenty years yet. 
In the meantime my word is as good as my pen." And 
then, methinks, I hear the beloved John exclaim : " I am 
the author of the fourth Gospel, but all you who hear my 
voice will have gone to the spirit-world, or ever I write 
down the first word." Then St. Peter jumps to his feet 
and says : " Ye fools and blind ! A large part of the New 
Testament is to be written by one who is now a persecutor 
and injurious, making havoc of the Church. And even 
when the Canon of Scripture is closed, it will contain 
many things hard to be understood 6 which they that are 
"unlearned and unstable will wrest to their own destruction, 
by their ' private interpretations.' 7 Sixty years will elapse 
before the Bible is finished ; three hundred before The 
Church decides which of the many religious writings are 
inspired ; and fourteen or fifteen centuries ere the invent- 
ive genius of man will make it possible to put the open 
Bible into the hands of all Christians. Meanwhile what 
is the Church to do ? Why, the Lord has directed us 8 to 
teach you to observe all things whatsoever He has com- 



5. II. Tim., i., 13. 6. II. St. Peter, iii., 16. 7. II. St. Peter, i., 20. 8. St. Mat- 
thew, xxviii., 20. 



30 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



manded us. He spent forty days with us after His Resur- 
rection, teaching us the things pertaining to His Church. 9 
We know what we are about. And if you are willing to 
accept our writing, will ye not receive our spoken word ? " 

Thus would St. Peter have shown the folly of the Protest- 
ant novelty that the Church is founded on the New Testament 
The fact is that, as the Jewish Church, which was fully 
organized under Moses, lived a thousand years before the 
Old Testament was completed, so the Catholic Church 
flourished for two generations, as the perfectly organized and 
authoritative Kingdom of God, before the New Testament 
was finished. Late in the fourth century St. Chrysostom 
mentions the Acts of the Apostles as a book which proba- 
bly no one in the vast cathedral congregation of Constanti- 
nople had ever read. Yet all the while the Church was 
perfectly organized, and achieved its most glorious triumphs. 
It had its Rule of Faith, which crystallized into the Creed ; 
it had its worship (the " Divine Liturgy "), the threefold 
Ministry, the Sacraments, and the oral Gospel which the 
Apostles preached many years before it was put on paper, 
and which the Christians knew and loved whether they 
could read or not. And the Church would still be the 
Church, even had God chosen to withhold from it the 
written word ; and would continue to be the c< Church of 
the Living God, the Pillar and ground of the truth," even 
if (as humanly speaking seemed probable at one time) 
every copy of the Bible had been destroyed. Christianity 
is not a MS., but a Kingdom ; not a book, but a living, 
believing, worshipping, governing and working Church. 
Officers of this Church, it is true, were inspired by the 



9. Acts, i., 3. 



AUTHORITY, 31 



Holy Ghost to write a Book, which is thus a most precious 
revelation from God, and " profitable for doctrine, for re- 
proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 10 
But it must be remembered the Booh was written by Church- 
men, for the Church already existing, and must be inter- 
preted according to the Church's Kule of Faith. 11 The 
Bible divorced from the Church is like a constitution 
without a nation, a code of laws without a government to 
give them sanction and authority. 

Thus the three distinctive features of modern Romanism, 
and the illogical, unecclesiastical, uncatholic novelties 
which are the foundation of Protestant Dissent are incom- 
patible with — nay, inconceivable in — the One Holy Cath- 
olic and Apostolic Church as founded by Incarnate God, 
and builded by those to whom He gave authority and 
power until the end of time. 



10. II. Tim., iii., 16. 

11. 44 Without the Creeds, the Holy Scriptures are as a treasure-house of 
which we have lost the key." 



CHAPTER V. 



MARKS OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

"I obey, 

Following where'er the Church hath marked the ancient way." 

— Lyra Apostolica, p. 132. 

E read that the three thousand converts who were bap- 



V V tized on the day of Pentecost, "continued steadfastly" 
in four things: 1 The Doctrine of the Apostles; The Fellowship 
of the Apostles ; The Breaking of the Bread; and The Prayers. 
Churchmen of old, then, in addition to being baptized, had 
four marks by which they were known, and all Christians 
w T ho are Churchmen bear those same marks to-day. 

(a) They continued steadfastly in the Doctrine of the 
Apostles, i. e. } the Faith ; the othodox Catholic Faith which 
the Apostles taught the Church ; or, in brief, the Creed. 
Any departure from this standard, either by false additions 
or by diminutions, is heresy. 

(b) They continued steadfastly in the Fellowship of the 
Apostles — not merely of one of the Apostles — i. e., they 
remained in communion with the Church and loyal to the 
Apostolic Episcopate. This fellowship or communion is 
broken to-day by those who say: 2 "I am of Cephas" 
[Peter], They assert (though mistakenly) that St. Peter 
was an Apostle of Apostles, the Head of the Church, hav- 
ing sole jurisdiction over the whole world ; that he was 




1. Acts, ii., 42. 2. 1 Cor., i., 12, and iii., 21-22. 



AUTHORITY. 



33 



Bishop of Rome (which he was not); and that this [imagi- 
nary] Authority has come down in unbroken line (though 
it has not) in the Bishops of Rome. On the strength of a 
non-existent authority which St. Peter did not possess, which 
he did not bequeath to the Bishops of Rome, and which 
the Bishops of Rome have not kept in unbroken succession, 
they have broken fellowship with four out of the five Patri- 
archs of Catholic Christendom, with their Bishops, clergy 
and laity who at the time far outnumbered those who 
adhered to the Patriarch of Rome ; and have broken fellow- 
ship w T ith the autocephalous 3 Churches, like the Churches 
of Great Britain and Cyprus, and set up altar against altar? 
notably within the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church 
since 1570. 

This Fellowship with the Apostles is still more violently 
broken by all Protestant Dissenters who have rebelled 
against the Apostolic Episcopate and seceded from the his- 
toric Church. For individual believers in Christ, who by 



3. Note. "The dioceses are grouped into provinces, with an Archbishop 
over each. The provinces are grouped, except those in the far West of Europe, 
England among them, and except a few in the East, which are still left auto- 
cephalous, into Patriarchates with a Patriarch over each," viz., Rome, Constanti- 
nople (which Canon III. of the Second General Council declares to have " equal 
privileges" with Rome), Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. 

"The exclusive theory of Rome was resisted from the time it made its first 
faint appearance in the Catholic Church until to-day. * * * As it grew in 
strength and insolence during the darkest time of the Middle Ages, the whole 
Eastern and Greek part of the Catholic Church, at that time by far the largest, 
most enlightened and numerous part, with the Patriarch of Constantinople 
at its head, rose and excommunicated the Bishop of Rome and all his adherents. 
Thus four out of the five great Patriarchates of the world cut oil the one Western 
or Roman Patriarchate. The Roman theory then, left to itself, easily gained addi- 
tional strength and self-assertion in the West, until in the sixteenth century the 
Catholic part of tne Church in England could endure it no longer. * * * 
So the Roman part of the Church cut itself off first from the whole Eastern part of 
the Church, and then from the Anglican."— Catholicity in its Relationship to 
Protestantism and Romanism. By Dr. Ewer, pp. 236 and 155. 
3 



3^ 



REASON'S FOB BEIXG A CHURCHMAN. 



heredity or by erroneous teaching are to-day not in com- 
munion with the Church, all Churchmen should entertain 
feelings of sympathy and brotherly love. But with the 
systems of Dissent and -with their founders, those sons of 
Nebat who make Israel to sin, there can be no compromise. 

It should be remembered also that in the long run, the 
breaking of the Fellowship of the Aj)ostles is always accom- 
panied by more or less of a departure from the Doctrine of 
the Apostles, as well as from the two remaining marks of 
the Church, which must now be considered. 

(c) The early Church continued steadfastly in the Break- 
ing of the Bread, i. e., the Holy Eucharist. Those who do 
not regularly, lawfully and frequently participate in the 
Holy Communion, do not continue steadfastly in the Break- 
ing of the Bread. This sign of true Catholicity is marred 
or obliterated by those who mutilate the Blessed Sacra- 
ment (like the modern Romanists); by those who make 
superstitious additions to it ; by those who parody it by 
attempting to consecrate it without the lawful Priesthood, or 
without the proper matter (z. e., bread and wine), or with- 
out the proper form (ft. e., the essential part of the Divine 
Liturgy); and, of course, by those who abolish it altogether, 
like the Quakers. And surely this mark is very much 
dimmed in those parishes of our own Church where Matins 
takes the place of Holy Communion forty Sundays out of 
the year, and where on the First Day of the week we come 
together not, like the early Christians, " to break Bread, 1 ' 
but to hear sermons. 

(d) They continued steadfastly in the Prayers, not 
merely in prayer in general, but in the Prayers. The 
definite article is there in the Greek, and has been restored 



AUTHORITY. 



35 



in the Revised Version of the New Testament. What the 
Prayers means no one need be ignorant. The Church, like 
the Jewish Synagogue, has always had a form of worship. 
The Liturgy of the Church, though elastic and flexible? 
has in it an element invariable and divine, a norm or skel- 
eton which is demonstrably of Apostolic origin, the com- 
mon heritage of Catholic Christendom. 

Of the three divisions of English-speaking Christians 
(Churchmen, Romanists and Dissenters) which has con- 
tinued the most steadfastly in these four things? Which 
holds the Doctrine of the Apostles without additions and 
without diminutions ? Which holds the Fellowship of the 
Apostles and the Communion of Saints ? — the Catholic Epis- 
copate free from tyrannous usurpation, a reasonable and 
reformed Priesthood, but without breaking the Apostolic 
Succession? Which holds the Breaking of the Bread, 
without mutilating the Sacrament, without superstitious 
additions, with lawful priestly ministrations, with proper 
matter and form ? Which holds the Prayers, the Catholic 
Liturgy — enriched, it is true, and adapted to present 
needs — but not overlaid with creature- worship, nor dissi- 
pated into the extemporaneous devotions of an individual 
man? 

It remains then to show that the Mother Church of 
English-speaking Christians to-day, like the Church in the 
days of the Apostles, having admitted to membership by 
Holy Baptism, holds its members steadfast in the Faith ; 
in the Apostolic Ministry (carrying with it Ordination and 
Confirmation); in the Blessed Sacrament of Christ's Body 
and Blood ; and in the Prayers, the devotional heritage of 
the Church. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND HOLY BAPTISM. 

"All in the nnregenerate child 
Is void and formless, dark and wild, 
Till the life-giving holy Dove 
Upon the waters gently move, 
And power impart, soft brooding there, 
Celestial fruit to hear." 

— Keble, Lyra Innocentium, II. 

IT has been shown that the Apostolic ministry of the 
early Church admitted to membership by Baptism; and 
then that the baptized members of the Church continued 
steadfastly in four things which may be called the marks 
of true Catholicity. All Christians have at least some 
measure of these four things, some element or elements of 
Catholicity; but it is the glory of the Anglican Church 
that she has retained them all. 

The Church was early planted in the British Isles, prob- 
ably by St. Paul himself. This Church, during the British 
ascendency, during the Saxon ascendency, during the Nor- 
man ascendency, and down to the present day, is the same 
Church. She has passed through sundry deformations and 
reformations, has never been absolutely perfect nor radi- 
cally imperfect; has never been without the Orthodox Faith, 
the Apostolic Ministry, the Sacraments, the Liturgy, and 



i 



AUTHORITY. 



37 



good works. She has at times been tyrannized over by a 
foreign ecclesiastical power, and again robbed and oppressed 
by the State, but she has never ceased to be the Church. 
Her escapade with the Bishop of Rome, especially from 
about a. d. 1200 to the middle of the sixteenth century, 
was unfortunate in the extreme, and brought her much 
trouble, but she never lost her personal identity, nor her 
lawful jurisdiction ; and is to-day the same Church and 
in the same position that she would be in, had England 
become totally isolated from all the rest of Christendom, 
and never so much as heard of the rise of the " Papacy " 
and the other strange " developments " which have taken 
place within the Latin Church. 

A comparison of the principles of the early Church, as 
seen in the New Testament and the writings of the Fathers, 
with those of the Anglican Church to-day, will show that 
the latter has not departed therefrom in any essential point, 
if indeed in any respect at all farther than local circum- 
stances and the progress of civilization justly demand. 
Nor can this be said of any other Communion in Western Christ- 
endom. 

As to Holy Baptism, which is the door of entrance from 
the world into the Church, she holds and has ever held 
what Christ taught, what the Apostles carried out, and 
what the Universal Church has practiced always and every- 
where. There is here no difference between us Churchmen 
and the rest of Catholic Christendom. It will be well, how- 
ever, to consider briefly what this Sacrament really means, 
this New Birth which made the early believers members 
of Christ, and of which our Church both in theory and 
practice makes so much account. Baptism and Regenera- 



3S REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



tion are synonymous terms. They both in Scriptural 
phraseology and in Church usage, stand for the initial 
rite of the Christian religion, viz., Christening or the act 
which makes one a Christian. Almost everything has two 
or three names, each emphasizing some special character- 
istic. The Sacrament of the Altar is variously called "the 
Breaking of the Bread," the Holy Communion, the Lord's 
Supper, the Holy Eucharist, and the Mass. So likewise 
the first Sacrament of Christianity is called Baptism with 
reference to its outward visible sign or form, and Regen- 
eration or the New Birth with reference to its inward 
spiritual grace. St. Paul couples the two ideas together 
when he says we are saved " by the Washing of Regenera- 
tion," 1 or as it might be rendered, the Baptism of the New 
Birth. Regeneration then is that death unto sin and new 
birth unto righteousness which constitutes the inward part 
or grace of the Sacrament. What could be simpler? We 
are born or generated into the world by the act of our 
parents ; we are born again or regenerated into the Church 
by " Water and the Spirit," receiving at the same time for- 
giveness of all past sins, original or actual. 2 

There is a shocking abuse of the word regeneration which 
has of late become prevalent among people ignorant of 
language and of Theology. They make it synonomous 
with conversion (!) It has no more to do with conversion 
than it has with getting married or being buried. Conver- 
sion is a change of heart for which we pray, when we say: 
" Create and make in us new and contrite hearts. " 3 Regen- 
eration is that Christening grace for which we pray, when 



1. Titus, iii., 5. 2. Ch. Catechism. St. John, iii., 5; Acts, in., 38. 3. Collect 
for A*h Wed. 



AUTHORITY. 



39 



we say: " Give Thy Holy Spirit to this Infant that he may 
be born again," and when we pray that " these persons com- 
ing to Thy Holy Baptism may receive remission of their 
sins by spiritual Regeneration." 4 Conversion is the act of 
the prodigal in returning to his Father ; Regeneration is 
the act of the Father in receiving him and admitting him 
to His house. To call conversion Regeneration, as most 
Dissenters do, is simply an abuse of language and a con- 
fusion of ideas. One might just as well call repentance, 
Confirmation ; or Faith, Ordination ; or a man, an eagle ; 
or a fish, a bird. We may be converted a hundred times ; 
we can be baptized, christened, regenerated but once. And 
so, as soon as the infant is baptized the priest says, " See- 
ing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regen- 
erate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us 
give thanks," and then he prays: " We yield Thee hearty 
thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased Thee to 
regenerate this infant with Thy Holy Spirit, to receive him 
for Thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him 
into Thy holy Church." 

It is common in these days to hear some well-meaning 
Christian say, " 0, I believe in Baptism, but I don't regard 
it a 'saving ordinance.'" It is well to remind such that 
they differ from the Catholic Church which St. Peter 5 
taught to believe, " Baptism doth also now save us," and to 
which St. Paul writes, "According to His mercy He saved 
us by the Washing of Regeneration." 1 In no less than 
twelve passages of the New Testament do Christ or His 
Apostles associate Salvation with Baptism, e. g. " Christ 
loved the Church, and gave Himself for her that He might 

4. Baptismal Offices. 5. I Pet. iii.,21. 



40 REASONS FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



sanctify and cleanse her by the Washing of Water." 6 A 
faithful disciple sent by God, says to the penitent and 
believing Saul of Tarsus, "Arise, be baptized and wash away 
thy sins." 7 St. Peter says in answer to the question, 
"What shall we do to be saved? " u Repent and be bap- 
tized every one of you for the remission of sins." 8 When 
Christ commissioned the Apostles to baptize all nations, 
He adds, " He that believeth and is baptized, shall be 
saved." 9 And He said to Nicodemus, " Except a man be 
born of Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God." There is no such thing as an unchristened 
Christian ; an unbaptized person is an " alien from the com- 
monwealth of Israel, and a stranger from the covenant of 
promise." By Baptism, then, a person is cleansed from 
sin, bom again, admitted into the Church, made a mem- 
ber of Christ and inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
brought into a state of salvation from which, of course, he 
may fall, if he be unfaithful. 

Such, in brief, is the Church's doctrine of Ho]y Baptism, 
as we gather from the New Testament, and from the writ- 
ings of the Fathers — from Justin Martyr, writing before 
148 a. d.; from Irenaeus and Tertullian but a little later ; 
from the great and godly Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage a. 
d. 246 ; from St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, a. d. 351, 
whose admirable lectures on Baptism are still extant ; from 
the unvarying testimony of hosts of others, as well as from 
the early Baptismal Offices ; from the constant use of the 
Catholic Church ; and, what is of special interest to us, 
from the uninterrupted theory and practice of that part of 
the Catholic Church to which it is our privilege to belong. 



6. Eph.. v., 25-6. 7. Acts, xxii . 16. 8 Acts, ii., 38 9. St.Mark, xvi., 16. 



AUTHORITY. 



41 



These sources of authority also demonstrate beyond all 
cavil or doubt, that (as Dr. Blunt expresses it) " Baptism 
has been given to infants from the time of its first institu- 
tion/' At the start, of course, there were very few infants 
to be reached by the Church, but whenever we read in 
Holy Scripture of the older members of a family being 
converted, we always read that not only they but the entire 
household were baptized. 10 As the Church grew, and chil- 
dren were born to Christian parents, those parents always 
brought their little ones to the Church that they might be 
born into the family of God, believing, as St. Cyprian says 
that " one cannot have God for his Father, unless he have 
the Church for his mother." So often were parents or spon- 
sors seen wending their way to church with babes in their 
arms, that the Pagans started the dreadful slander that 
Christians met together to slay little children and drink 
their blood ! 

There was a controversy in the early Church of North 
Africa about infant Baptism, but the question was not 
whether infants should be christened, but whether they 
should be christened before they were eight days old. And 
the great Bishop of Carthage, above mentioned, with fifty 
Bishops in council assembled^ ruled that no infant was too 
young for Baptism. The eighth day used to be a favorite 
time for christening, after the analogy of Jewish Circum- 
cision, that type of Baptism, by which a child of a week 
was admitted to all the privileges and grace of God's ancient 
Covenant. Justin Martyr, who was almost contemporan- 
eous with St. John, speaks of many aged people who had 



10. Acts, xvi., 15 and 33, and 1 Cor., i., 16. 



42 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



been made disciples of Christ from infancy. St. Irenseus 
speaks of " infants and little children, and boys and young 
men " all being alike born anew to God by Holy Baptism. 
St. Augustine speaks of "infants baptized in Christ," and 
says: " In infants born and baptized, and thus born again, 
let Christ be acknowledged." "When the Good Shepherd 
builded the " one fold," He meant it for the lambs as well 
as for the sheep. We may rest assured that the Catholic 
Church, after baptizing infants for nearly 1900 years, knows 
what she is about. That heartless heresy which denies the 
mercies of the Covenant to the little children whom Jesus 
blessed, 11 which shuts out of the Kingdom of God those 
very ones concerning whom the Saviour said, " Of such is 
the Kingdom of God," 12 was born of ignorance, nourished 
on prejudice, and has been propagated by a mistaken zeal 
worthy a better cause. It has also brought it to pass that, 
even under the shadow of the old English Church, multi- 
tudes grow up unregenerate — oftentimes subjectively believ- 
ers, but objectively heathen. From the conversion of Eng- 
land to the Church until the seventeen years when Puri- 
tanism drove the " Elect Lady " into the wilderness (1645- 
1662) such a thing as an unbaptized Englishman was 
practically unknown. And it was only after the restora- 
tion of the Church that it became necessary to insert in 
the Prayer Book an Office for "the Baptism of Adults" to 
make up for the neglect of Regeneration during that period 
of sacrilege and self-will. 

To sum up, then, as one has said, "All testimony of 
writers down to the twelfth century approves its use [infant 



11. St. ?.Iark, x., 16. 12. St. Mark, x., 14. 



AUTHORITY. 



43 



Baptism], and there is not one saying, quotation, or exam- 
ple, that makes against it." 

Consequently the Anglican Church is right in declaring 
that the " Baptism of young children is in any wise to be 
retained in the Church, as most agreeable to the institution 
of Christ ; " 13 and in instructing the people " that they 
defer not the Baptism of their children longer than the 
first or second Sunday next after their birth, * * * 
unless upon great and reasonable cause." 14 

It is worthy of note that it is only such sects as have lost, 
not only the Apostolic Ministry, but the whole " Church 
Idea," that distort, underrate, or abolish Holy Baptism, or 
stumble at the doctrine of Regeneration which the Bible 
and the Church inculcate. The fact is, if one have a low 
or vague opinion of the Church, he will have a low or vague 
opinion of that Sacrament which makes us members of the 
Church. If the Church is anything less than she, on the 
authority of the Holy Ghost, claims to be, then Baptism is 
only an empty ordinance, an indifferent rite, a strange cere- 
mony, a meaningless symbol, a powerless instrument. But 
what is the Church? — that "Church which God purchased 
with His own Blood," 15 giving Himself for her " that He 
might sanctify and cleanse her by the Washing of Water? " 
What is the Church into which we are baptized ? St. Paul 
says: " The Church is His Body, the fulness of Him that 
filleth all in all/' 16 And the baptized — what of them? 
They have "all by one Spirit been baptized into One 
Body" 17 They are "in Christ." a As many of you as 
have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." 18 



13. Art.XXVlI. 14. Private Baptism of Children, P. B. 15. Acts, xx., 28. 16. 
Epheeians, i., 23. 17. 1 Cor M xii., 12. 18. Gal., iii., 26. 



44 REASONS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



They are the " Body of Christ and members in particular." 
Their very "bodies' 3 are <; members of Christ." 19 and 
they are " partakers of the Divine Nature" 20 The Church, 
then, is the Mystical Body of Incarnate God. A meta- 
phor ? Perhaps so — but God's figures of speech stand 
ever for realities, for realities heavenly and eternal. As 
a late writer has said : " The Incarnation is a perpetual 
fact. What is the supernatural law, then, under which 
Christ's own personal Body continues to expand? It is 
this: human beings are baptized into Christ, according as it 
is written, ' We are members of His Body, of His Flesh, 
and of His Bones.' 21 Human beings, sprouting like so 
many separate branches from the poisoned roots of Adam,, 
are plucked thence by the Holy Ghost, and, in Baptism^ 
grafted into the new tree, Christ; our bodies into His; our 
souls into His; our hopes, our imaginations, our passions, 
our reason into His ; and so the Tree enlarges; so His Body 
Visible expands; so the Stone [cut out without hands] grows 
and becomes a Great Mountain, and fills the whole earth;, 
according as it is written: 1 We are the Body of Christ.' " 
The act, then, which unites human beings to Incarnate- 
God, through His Body, the Church, is beauteous in its 
simplicity, intelligible in its meaning, transcendently im- 
portant in its sublime and far-reaching effects. And 
this, the Foundation Sacrament of Christ's Religion, the 
Anglican Church, in common with all parts of Catholic 
Christendom, not only holds to-day, but has always re- 
tained, used, and prized ; otherwise she could lay no just 
claim to that true Catholicity which is based on the his- 
toric continuity of Apostolic truth. 



19. 1 Cor., vi., 15. 20. 2d Peter, L, 4. 21. Eph., v., 30. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND " THE APOSTLES 5 DOCTRINE." 

"It is of the essence of the Church that it teach the Catholic Faith." — BisTwfr 
Forbes. 

"Mark how each Creed stands in that test revealed, 
Romish, and Swiss, and Lutheran novelties." 

—Lyra Apo^tolica, p. 130. 

ZEAL for the vindication of Episcopacy, which is of course 
one of the essentials of the Christian Church, has led 
many defenders of the Church to make it the chief argument 
why we should be Churchmen rather than Dissenters. The 
possession of a valid Episcopal Succession makes us " Epis- 
copalians," but does not necessarily prove us to be Ortho- 
dox Catholic Churchmen, free from " false doctrine, heresy, 
and schism." The Arians were Episcopalians, but here- 
tics ; the Novatians and Donastists were Episcopalians, but 
schismatics. The historic continuity of the Anglo-Catho- 
lic Church depends not alone on the Apostolic Succession, 
but on the uninterrupted possession of all the marks of 
primitive Catholicity. Had our Church abolished the Sac- 
rament of Baptism, Episcopacy would not save her ; had 
she lost the " Doctrine of the Apostles," " the Breaking of 
the Bread," or " the Prayers," the mere fact of having 
" Fellowship with the Apostles " through a Succession of 



46 REASONS FOE BEING A CH UR CHMA X. 



Bishops, would not make her a true or complete Church, 
nor afford satisfactory reasons why we should be Church- 
men, unless and until, in the Providence of God, the golden 
crown of Apostolic Order should draw back the lost jewels 
of Apostolic Faith, Eucharist and Worship. These, how- 
ever, the English Church never lost. I therefore depre- 
cate the phrase, " the restored Catholicity " of the English 
Church. She was never without it. In theory the Angli- 
can Church was never Roman, and never Protestant, though 
at times like a storm-tossed bark she has felt the whirl- 
pool of Charybdis, and seen the broken crags of Scylla. 
If we leave out of account certain practical departures from 
that theory, which were forced upon her by the brute might 
of the Papacy 1 or the grim and selfish tyranny of Kings, 2 
we shall find that the general faith, order and worship of 
the English Church have always been substantially the 
same. That this is so in the case of Baptism has been 
shown. If it is so also in the case of the four marks of 
Catholicity — Apostolic Faith, and Fellowship, the Euchar- 
ist, and the Prayers — then the Anglican Church may. more 

1. e- g. The evils, which accompanied the mediaeval intrusion of Monastic 
orders from Italy, which claimed exemption from the jurisdiction of the English 
Bishops, which, by the way, was a direct violation of Canon IV., of the General 
Council of Chalcedon, which says: " Zs o monk shall live anywhere, nor estab- 
lish a monastery or an oratory contrary to the will of the bishop of the city: and 
that the monks in every city and district shall be subject to the bishop.*' In 
Canon VIII. of the same council we read: "Let the clergy of the . . . mon- 
asteries ... in every city remain under the authority of the bishops, accord- 
ing to the tradition of the holy fathers; and let no one arrogantly cast off the rule 
of his own bishop; and if any shall contravene this canon in any way whatever, 
and will not be subject to their own bishop, if they be clergy, let them be sub- 
jected to canonical penalties, and if they be monks or laymen, let them be excom- 
municated.*' 

2. e. g. The tyranny of Henry VIII., and William of Orange, or the silenc- 
ing of Convocation, and the usurpations of Parliament and the Privy Council 
under the Hanoverian Sovereigns. 



AUTHORITY. 



4T 



justly than any other Branch of the Church or than any 
sect, claim the allegiance of all English-speaking Christians. 

Taking these things in their order then, what was the 
" Faith once delivered to the Saints," the Faith of the 
Early Church which the Anglican Church has kept? It 
was a belief in God, the Father ; in Jesus Christ, His 
only Son, Who became Incarnate of a Virgin, in His life 
and death, His Resurrection, His Ascension into Heaven, 
and His coming again as Judge ; in the Holy Ghost ; the 
Holy Catholic Church, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrec- 
tion of the Body, and Everlasting Life. 

The narrative portions of the New Testament show that 
this, in brief, was the Faith of the Early Church ; the 
dogmatic portions authoritatively assert these truths with 
their necessary implications. This Summary of revealed 
truth, grand in its simplicity, vast in its comprehensive- 
ness, was taught orally by the Apostles, as " the Form of 
Sound Words," and was early used, throughout all parts 
of the Church, as a Profession of Faith for Candidates for 
Holy Baptism. 3 Christ had commanded all nations to be 



3. A very ancient form of the Creed, adapted to a baptismal profession, in 
size and expression midway between the longer, or Eastern form of the Apos- 
tolic Creed, which was adopted at Nicaea, or the shorter or Western form, com- 
monly called the "Apostle's Creed," is preserved in the earliest fragment extant 
of the Baptismal Liturgy, in Book VII., Chapter XLI. of the "Apostolic Consti- 
tution," a work compiled by an unknown writer, probably between 250 and 300 
A. D , but the materials of which were much more ancient. The person to be 
baptized says: "I renounce Satan and his works, and his pomps and his wor- 
ship," etc. * * "And after this renunciation, let him, in his dedication say: 
' I associate myself with Christ, and— I Believe in (and am baptized into) one 
Unbegotten Being, the only true God Almighty, the Father of Christ, the 
Creator and Maker of all things, from Whom are all things; — and into the Lord 
Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, the Firstborn of the whole creation, Who, 
before the ages was by the good pleasure of the Father, begotten, not created ; 
through Whom all things were made, both those in Heaven and those on Earth, 



48 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



baptized, " in the Name of the Father and of the Son and 
of the Holy Ghost." Accordingly the Apostles, having 
stated this Doctrine of the Trinity, with a few of the pre- 
cious results of the Incarnation in the only natural and 
logical order, 4 required this belief of those who were 
admitted to the Church. The tradition that the Creed 
was composed by the Apostles has been general in the 
Church for some 1600 years. The Creed, in substantially 
its present form, is given by St. Trenseus, less than a cen- 
tury after the death of St. John, as something well known 
in his day. Traces of it are found in Justin Martyr (who 
died about 150 a. d.), St. Polycarp for more than fifty 
years the Bishop of Smyrna ("for twenty years the disciple 
of St John," probably the one addressed as the "Angel of 
the Church in Smyrna," Rev. ii.,8), St. Clement the third 
Bishop of Rome (the " fellow laborer " of St. Paul, " whose 
name is in the Book of Life," Phil, iv., 3), and in St. Igna- 
tius (for thirty years Bishop of Antioch, and a contempo- 
rary of all the Apostles). As Dr. Blunt observes, " There 
is more reason for believing that the Creed was composed 



visible and invisible: Who in the last days descended from Heaven, and took 
flesh, ana was born of the Holy Virgin Mary, and lived a holy life according to 
the laws of His God and Father, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died 
for us; and rose again from the dead, after His Passion, the third day, and 
ascended into the Heavens, and sitteth at the Right Hand of the Father. And 
again is to come at the end of the world, with glory, to judge the quick and the 
dead , of Whose Kingdom there shall be no end. I am baptized also into the Holy 
Ghost, that is, the Comforter, Who wrought in all the Saints from the beginning 
of the world, but was afterwards sent to the Apostles by the Father according to 
the promise of our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ, and after the Apostles, to all 
who believe in the Holy Catholic Church ; into the Resurrection of the Flesh, and 
into the Remission of Sins, and into the Kingdom of Heaven, and into the life of 
the world to come.'" 

4. For a clear exposition of the unity and logical order of the articles of the 
Creed, see Ewer's " Catholicity in its Relation," etc., p. 53. 



AUTHORITY. 



49 



by the Apostles, under Inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
than for believing the contrary." Be that as it may, the 
"Apostles' Creed " is at least the form into which Apostolic 
teaching crystallized in the West, as the equivalent Symbol 
which was witnessed to, ratified, and made universal at 
Nicsea and Constantinople, is the bright gem cut and 
bequeathed by Apostolic hands in the East. Properly 
speaking the "Apostles' Creed " and the Nicene Creed are 
equally the Apostles' Creed, the only difference being that 
the form in which it was handed down in the West was a 
little more condensed than the other. But there was no 
difference in its meaning, for any ambiguity of statement 
was made up for by the authoritative interpretation, or 
traditional commentary, which may be called by that 
much abused phrase, the "sense of the Church." The 
Nicene Creed, it should be remembered, was not^rs^ drawn 
up at the Council of Nicsea in 325. All the dioceses of 
Christendom had inherited the Creed in substantially the 
same shape, and with absolutely the same import. The 318 
Bishops from all parts of the Church, who met at Nicsea 
to bear witness against Arms' denial of the Divinity of 
Christ, merely agreed upon an ancient form of the primi- 
tive Creed, hallowed by devout and immemorial usage in 
the Diocese of Csesarea, which Eusebius, the Bishop of 
Csesarea, who presented it to the Council, avowed he had 
received from his predecessors in the Episcopate, and into 
which, indeed, he himself had been baptized. So much 
of the universally inherited apostolical credendum, as bore 
upon the Person of our blessed Lord, which was the truth 
then assailed, was so fortified in expression, but not altered 
in meaning, as absolutely and forever to exclude all forms 



50 REASON'S FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



of Unitarian infidelity, and receive the Imprimatur of the 
first Ecumenical Council. The remainder (following the 
words " I believe in the Holy Ghost,") was witnessed to and 
promulgated at the Second General Council (Constantinople, 
381). It was not then drawn up, for the entire Creed, as 
then authorized, had been in general use for an indefinite 
period antecedent. 5 The Creed thus ecumenically ap- 
proved, a part at Nicsea, the whole at Constantinople, has 
ever since been received by the entire Catholic Church, as 
the articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesise, and has never been 
altered. 6 The Creed is, then, an unfailing witness to the 
inspired teaching of the Apostles, given by the whole 
Church in an age when such testimony was possible 
(which has long since gone by) and received by the whole 
Church; and hence, it is an independent authority, conso- 
nant of course, with Holy Scripture, and provable there- 
from. 

The "Athanasian Creed," or Hymn, composed about a. 
d. 430, stands on a different basis, but is at least venerable 
compared with all Protestant Confessions. It has never 
received conciliar ratification nor formal reception by the 
whole Church — albeit no Diocese in Christendom repu- 
diates it or denies its definitions. Even Richard Baxter 7 
could say of it: "I unfeignedly account Athanasius' Creed 
the best explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity that I 
ever read." It is simply an admirable expansion of the 



5. See Epiphanius' "Anchorite," near the end. 

6. The " filioque ' ' is no proper part of the Creed. It asserts a Theological 
truth (see Dr. Richey's admirable monograph on the subject) in harmony with 
the Creed, but has never been sanctioned by any General Council, having been 
introduced by a local Synod in the West, with results greatly to be deplored. 

7. Reasons of the Chris. Rel., Chap. IX., p. 313. 



AUTHORITY. 



51 



truths of the primitive Creed. And the closer we are to 
the heart of our Divine Human Master, the more faithfully 
we confess the eternal Trinity and worship the Divine 
Unity, the more will we understand and love that grand 
statement of the Orthodox Faith. The " damnatory " or 
Enacting Clauses, are hardly more a part of the Creed than 
the Anathemas originally affixed to the Nicene Symbol. 
Nevertheless they are precisely what our Saviour Himself 
has taught. 8 This Creed is a part of the doctrine of the 
English Church, and it is a matter of regret to many that 
the Church in the United States decided not to insert it in 
her Liturgy and Articles. But so far from repudiating it, 
she is as much bound by its doctrine as if she had 
retained it, since every clause is contained explicitly or by 
necessary implication in Holy Scripture and in the Apos- 
tles' and Nicene Creeds. Moreover, as the Bishop of Con- 
necticut has pointed out, " That our Church accepts the 
Athanasian definitions is placed beyond doubt by the 
declaration in the Preface to the Prayer Book that we do 
not intend to depart from the Church of England in any 
essential point of doctrine \ by the retention of the Pref- 
ace of Trinity Sunday in the office for Holy Communion ; 
and by the adoption of the first five Articles [which see]." 9 
A single word as to the Thirty-nine Articles. They are 
not a Creed, but a compendium of Anti-Romish and Anti- 
Calvinistic theology, designed for the Clergy, not for the 
laity. They contain a few ambiguous passages, but are hap- 
pily susceptible of a strictly Orthodox and Catholic inter- 
pretation. 



8. See St. Mark xvi., 16; St. John iii., 16, and viii. 24. 

9. Note on Ath. Cr. Am. Ed. Brown on Art. See also Rev. F. W. Taylor's 
excellent monograph on the "Athanasian Creed." 



52 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



It must now be shown that the Apostolic Faith is and 
has always been the belief of the Anglican Church. 

That the Anglican Church has always held the Creed, in 
the same sense as she holds it to-day, is a simple matter of 
history. Dr. Blunt says: " The Apostles' Creed has been 
used in the daily Offices of the English Church as far back 
as they can be traced." British Bishops, beyond reasona- 
ble doubt, were present at the Council of Nicsea. At all 
events, the British Church not only accepted the Nicene 
Faith, but stands almost alone in Christendom, as a great 
national Church which passed through the Arian epidemic 
with scarce a taint of the impious plague. Withdrawn 
from the turmoil and strife of the rest of Christendom, 
the Bishops of our Mother Church clung to the primitive 
Faith, while the dreadful heresy which would dethrone the 
Son of God was making havoc of the Church in the East 
and even as far West as Italy and Spain. " In every city 
of the East and of Africa, the Arian party filled the sees, 
held the churches, and formed the most numerous party. 
The Catholics were a despised and persecuted minority." 10 
Heretical Bishops, at various times, ruled the Church in 
Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, Constantinople 
and Rome. 11 

In spite of the Modern Roman dogma that the Bishops of 
Rome are all infallible, Liberius, Bishop of Rome (who died 



10. Cutt's Turning Points of Gen. Ch. Hist., p. 165. 

11. This, I take it, is the meaning of Article XIX., which declares that as "the 
Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church 
of Rome hath erred. 11 This Article does not say that these Churches are now in 
error (which would be, as the late Patriarch of Constantinople said, an "accusa- 
tion of our neighbor, out of place in a distinguished confession"), but merely that 
they have erred in times past. 



AUTHORITY. 



A. D. 366), became an Arian, but still governed the Church 
in the Imperial City. Virgilius was an heretic, and was 
excommunicated by the Fifth General Council (a. d. 553). 
Honorius embraced the Monothelite heresy, and was 
anathematized by the Sixth General Council (a. d. 680). 
The list of English Archbishops shows no such apostates 
as these ! Various other heresies have been held by the 
Bishops of Rome, 12 and what one " Infallible Pontiff" has 
declared to be heresy, his equally infallible successors have 
promulgated as part of the Faith, and necessary to salva- 
tion ! [See note at the end of the Chapter.] 

At the Council of Sardica (a. d. 347) British Bishops 
were present and sided with the Orthodox party. St. 
Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers (a. d. 358), congratulates the 
" Bishops of the British Provinces " that they " have con- 
tinued undefiled and unharmed by any taint of the detes- 
table heresy/' St. Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexan- 
dria, the great champion of the Faith, in his letter to the 
Emperor Jovian (a. d. 363), places the British Church 
among the Churches loyal to the Catholic Faith. St. Chry- 
sostom, St. Jerome and other Fathers of the fourth century, 
bear glowing testimony to the orthodoxy of our old Brit- 
ish Mother. It is true that in the fifth century a Briton 
named Pelagius, while on a visit to Rome, learned a heresy 
which he brought back to his mother country ; but the 
British Bishops, with the kindly assistance of two learned 
Bishops from Gaul, easily vanquished Pelagianism. 

Indeed, no heresy touching the fundamentals of the 
Faith, has ever been accepted, even temporarily, by the Church 
of the British and Anglo-American race. 



12. Cf. the cases of Coelestius, Zosimus, Hormisdas and others. — Bnsauctc. 30, 



54 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Our venerable sister, the Church of Rome, calls us heret- 
ical — not on the ground that we do not hold and profess 
the same old Creeds which both of us, in common with 
the Holy Eastern Church, have alike inherited, but because, 
forsooth, we do not accept certain additions to the Apostolic 
Faith, made on her sole authority, but not sanctioned by 
any General Council, not taught by the Fathers, and never 
accepted by the Greek Church ! It matters not whether 
these additions be true or false; it is enough that they are 
novelties, absolutely and forever ruled out in advance by a 
decree of the Fourth General Council, 13 and therefore of 
no possible obligation upon Catholic Christians. How 
much more is this so, if some of these additions be found 
to be in themselves, contradictory ; in their effects perni- 
cious ; historically untrue ; and false to the witness of the 
Holy Ghost in the Undivided Church and in Holy Writ ! 

Any loyal member of the early Church would be admit- 
ted to-day to full membership in the Anglican Church, 
which, in matters of faith, requires of her children only 
what the early Church required, viz: the Creed. To be a 
Roman Catholic one must believe precisely the same, and 
if that were all that Rome requires we should be at one. 
As to the Faith of the Universal Church, the Anglican 
Church at the Reformation, made no change. Even in 
minor points of doctrine there was then no wide breach 

13. The 630 Bishops at the Council of Chalcedon voted as follows with refer- 
ence to the ISTicene Creed : " The Holy and Ecumenical Synod decrees that it is 
not lawful for any man to propose, or compile, or compose, or hold, or teach to 
others, any different Faith. But those who presume to compose a different Faith, 
or to propagate, or teach, or deliver a different Formula to persons desirous of 
turning to the knowledge of the truth, from heathenism, or Judaism, or any 
heresy whatsoever, if they be bishops or clergymen, shall be deposed, * * * 
if they be monks or laymen, they shall be anathematised." 



AUTHORITY. 



55 



between the English and the Latin Churches, for most of 
the points in dispute were not, at that time, accounted 
essential even at Rome. Pius IV., the Bishop of Rome, in 
the year 1559 wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth, in which 
he acknowledged the English Bible and Book of Common 
Prayer " to be authentic and not repugnant to truth ; and 
that he would allow it to the English Church without chang- 
ing any part of it, if only her majesty would acknowledge 
to receive it from him and by his allowance." If we Angli- 
cans were not heretics then, we certainly are not now, for 
we have neither added to, nor detracted from, the Faith we 
then held. 

But since then the Roman Church has added to the 
Faith a number of doctrines which the Undivided Church 
has always either disallowed or else regarded as indifferent; 
viz., the Creed of Pius IV. which carries with it the decrees 
of Trent, some five hundred in all ; the dogma of the 
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, 14 which was 
never believed by the early Church, or the Churches of 
England and the East, which St. Augustine, in the fourth 
century, St. Bernard in the twelfth century, and St. Thomas 
Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, emphatically denied ; 
and last of all in the year of our Lord 1870, the doctrine 
of the Personal Infallibility of the Bishops of Rome, — a 
doctrine never allowed in the early Church, the Greek 
Church, or the English Church, and admittedly an open 
question among the strictest papists until fifteen years ago ! ! 

If it be heresy to refuse assent to these novelties, then 
Anglican and Greek Churchmen are heretics, and so were 



14. Promulgated in 1854. 



56 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



the Apostles and Saints of old. If this be heresy, make 
the most of it ! We are at least in good company. Oh ! 
if Rome would confine her dogmas to the primitive Faith, 
that Creed of the Universal Church, which we both hold 
and have held, and which is still a bond of union despite 
our unhappy estrangement ; or if she would at least leave 
these new beliefs optional, then, so far as the Faith is con- 
cerned, the three Branches of the Catholic Church, Greek 
and Latin and English, would be One. 

A single word as to the relation of Dissenters to the Apos- 
tolic Faith. Of the hundreds of Protestant sects, very few 
formally accept even the Apostles' Creed, and none, so far as 
I am aware, require a belief in the Nicene Creed, even on 
the part of their " ordained " preachers. 15 I lay it down 
as a thesis, which I am prepared to maintain, that no body 
of Dissenters really believes the Creed. They all, from the 
Presbyterians to the Socinians, accept the first part of the 
first article, viz., "I believe in God,'' but some do not 
believe in His Fatherhood. Some do not believe " in Jesus 
Christ, His only Son, our Lord,'' in His miraculous Con- 
ception and Birth, His Atoning Death, His Descent into 
Hades, His Resurrection and Ascension, and in His Com- 
ing again for judgment. Some sects do not believe in the 
Holy Ghost ; none of them believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church, in the sense in which the Church has used these 
words from the beginning. Few, if any, believe the 
Church's doctrine of the " Communion of Saints," or the 
" forgiveness of sins " (especially in the Nicene sense of 

15. I refer only to the English-speaking Protestants. It is true the Irvingites 
retain the three Creeds, in words, though they do not in sense, for their interpre- 
tation of the article, "I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church," is 
strange and unique indeed. 



AUTHORITY. 



" One Baptism for the Remission of Sins"), or the " Resur- 
rection of the Flesh and one whole sect is founded on a 
protest against the word "everlasting," as applied to the 
conditions of the future life ! ! 

Eliminate every article of the Creed which is rejected by 
one or more of the Denominations, and what remains ? A 
belief in God. Yes, thank the Lord, no dissenting church 
has dogmatically denied that, however much they have 
denied of what God has revealed concerning Himself and 
His Kingdom of Grace. 

No wonder that many thoughtful Dissenters, weary of a 
religion of negations, " the strife of tongues," are looking 
towards that ancient Church which still " continues stead- 
fastly in the Apostles' Doctrine," and "with one mouth pro- 
fesses the Faith once delivered to the Saints." 



Note.— In addition to the 44 Infallible " Heretics, mentioned on p. 53, five 
Bishops of Rome (John XII., Benedict IX., Gregory VI., Gregory XII., and John 
XXIII.) were deposed by Western Councils, for such freaks of Infallibility as 
heresy, schism, sorcery and crime. See also Littledale's " Plain Reasons against 
Joining the Church of Rome," p. 160, et Seg* 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



THE APOSTLES' FELLOWSHIP : WHAT SAITH THE SCRIPTUEE ? 

"Episcopacy is the only form of Church order contained in the Scriptures 
and manifest from ancient authors: and consequently, whether a Church should 
oe now Episcopal or not, is a question to be settled upon considerations, not of 
mere expediency, but of deference to the model of the primitive Church, as it 
was constituted by the Apostles under the guidance of inspiration; so that no 
one ought to be accounted a l lawful minister in this Church, or suffered to 
execute any functions of the ministry, unless he hath had Episcopal Ordina- 
tion.' "—Bishop 21cllvaine. 

"The history of Christianity is the history of Episcopacy. They are found 
united from the very first. Nor is there less evidence for the prevalence of this 
form of government in the primitive Church than there is of the reception of the 
Scriptures, or the use of the Sacraments in those times." — Palmer. 

DE QUINCE Y has said : " What a Church teaches is 
true or not true, without reference to her individual 
right of teaching." We have seen that the Anglican 
Church teaches the Orthodox Faith. We must now 
inquire whether she has a right to teach it, a right born of 
Apostolic Fellowship, the authority which comes of valid 
Orders and lawful Jurisdiction. For, as the Bishop of 
Quincy remarked to Mr. Moody, the revivalist : " When 
a boy brings us a dispatch, and we want to be sure it is 
genuine, we like to see 1 Western Union Telegraph ' on the 
boy's cap." 

Is Episcopacy or a line of Bishops, who, by regular 



AUTHORITY. 



50 



Ordination, succeed to the office and commission which 
Christ gave the Apostles, necessary to the unity, the con- 
tinuity, and the authority of the Church? 

Viewed a priori, the question resolves itself into this : 
Did Christ mean the Apostolic Office to be temporary or 
permanent? Permanent, beyond all shadow of doubt. 
Why, He promised to be with the Apostles not merely for 
their natural lives, but tc always, even unto the end of the 
world." Moreover, He gave them the whole earth as 
their field of Jurisdiction, and bade them do what the 
Apostolate will not have accomplished for many years 
yet, viz.: Go into all the world, preach the Gospel to 
every creature, and baptize all nations. And how did 
they act? They ordained certain men, called Deacons, to 
relieve them of some of their minor duties. 1 Then they 
ordained Priests in every place where they had gathered a 
congregation. 2 But did they stop with that ? Did they 

1. Acts, vi. 

2. Acts, xiv., 23, et passim. It should be remembered that Priest is but a 
shortened form of Presbyter. The two words are used interchangeabl3 T . The 
office of the Christian Minister (above the rank of Deacon) is distinctively sacer- 
dotal— sacerdotal in a higher and more spiritual sense than even the Aaronic 
Priesthood, because of the Holy Eucharist or "Sacrifice of the New Covenant,'" 
as St. Irenaeus calls it (Ir., iv., 17., 5). St. Paul speaks of himself as " Priest in g 
the Gospel of God" [the word is hierourgounta, Rom., xv., 16], and he calls 
himself a Leitourgos. The very earliest Fathers call Presbyters Priests, 
""Sacerdotes," and it is only a narrow and superstitious prejudice which, because 
priestly powers have sometimes been abused, affects to deny the title of Priest 
to the Ambassadors of God and Stewards of the Mysteries of His Grace. The 
Anglican Church, of course, has always preserved the identity of the Christian 
Priesthood (as well as the identity of the Episcopate) as seen in the character of 
the ordination, the phraseology employed, the official titles, the functions pre- 
scribed, and the symbols of office, especially the vestments— of which Bp. Forbes 
says: "We see in the maintainance of the habits [vestments'] the assertion of 
the sacerdotal cojitinuity of the Church before and after the Reformation, and 
the denial of its identity with the purely Protestant bodies." (Int. to the XXXIX. 
Arts., p. XXI.) Moreover, the Latin form of the thirty-nine articles, which is of 



00 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



allow their perpetual commission to lapse with themselves ? 
Did they intend to leave the Church, that Aionian King- 
dom, which the Son of God had given to them, with only 
the sterile Orders of Presbyter and Deacon? By no 
means. As the Jewish Church had its High Priest, its 
Priests and its Levites, so the Catholic Church was to have 
its three Orders — Apostles, Presbyters and Deacons. But 
if so, we must expect to find the Apostles ordaining also 
an Order of Ministers who rank above the lowly Deacons 
and Presbyters. In other words, if the Apostolic Office 
was to be perpetuated, we ought to find evidence in the 
New Testament and in the writings of the Fathers, that 
there were Apostles, or, as we now call them, Bishops, in 
addition to the original Twelve, but who shared their 
office, received the power to ordain, and inherited all the 
permanent grace and authority of the Apostolate. 

The perennial ivy grows from the cathedral's foundation 
to the cross-topped spire, an unbroken vine ; but all the 
way it keeps sending forth roots and rootlets, which cling 
to the hallowed stones and feed the growing stem, yet them- 
selves move not on. So the Catholic Episcopate, spring- 
ing from the li Root of Jesse," climbs the centuries of the 
Church's life, ever setting the Priests and Deacons in their 
hallowed place, and drawing from them the material, but 
not the life, of its own supernal and ever-lengthening Suc- 
cession. 

We have seen already that Matthias was chosen to suc- 
ceed to the " Bishoprick " of Judas, to i{ take part of this 

equal authority with the English form, leaves no room for ambiguity, for it uses 
the word Sacerdos for Priest; and the American Prayer Book speaks of the 
"mcer dotal functions," etc., of our Priests. 



AUTHORITY. 



61 



Ministry and Apostleshxp." 3 This shows that the "Apos- 
tleship" was to continue. The charmed circle of the 
Twelve enlarges ; St. Matthias is the " Thirteenth Apostle." 
Soon after another is chosen, James, a near relative (or 
u brother," as he was called in Hebrew and Greek) of the 
Lord. He had not at first believed in Christ; 4 but the 
Lord, after His Resurrection, appeared to James. 3 At all 
•events James believed ; and became an Apostle and the 
first Bishop of Jerusalem, the Head of that long line of 
Prelates which still rules the Mother of all Churches. St. 
Clement, a Priest of Alexandria, in the age next to that of 
the Apostles, 6 when abundant evidence was at hand, says : 
" Peter, James and John did not contend for the honor of 
presiding over the Church of Jerusalem ; but with the 
xest of the Apostles chose James the Just to be Bishop of 
that Church," St. Jerome, the greatest scholar of the 
fourth century, who spent thirty years in the Holy Land, 
says, in speaking of St. James, in order to show that 
ic others besides the Twelve were called Apostles : " " By 
degrees, in process of time, others also were ordained Apos- 
tles by those whom the Lord had chosen." And in his 

3. Acts, i., 25. 

4. The theory that James the Lord's brother, the Bishop of Jerusalem, was 
one of the Twelve, seems to be fairly excluded by the assertion that "Neither 
did his brethren believe on Him" (St. John, vii., 5). Moreover, this James is 
specially mentioned along with Simon and Joses, in a way which precludes his 
oeing one of the Twelve (St. Matth., xiii., 55-6). Bishop Lightfoot says : "James, 
though not one of the Twelve, appears, from the very first, to have held the posi- 
tion of ' a bishop in the later and more special sense of the word. 1 " — " On Philip- 
pians" (6th ed.), p. 197. Either way, however, the Episcopacy of St. James is a 
strong point in favor of Catholic order, for if he was one of the Twelve, we have 
an instance of one of the original Apostles settling down to the work not merely 
of a Bishop (which they all did), but of a Diocesan Bishop. 

5. "After that he was seen of James." I Cor., xv., 7. 

6. A. D. 180. 



62 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



biographical sketch of St. James he says : "After the 
passion of the Lord he (James) was forthwith ordained by 
the Apostles as Bishop of Jerusalem," 7 and that he ruled 
(rexif) the Church of Jerusalem for thirty-one years. How 
exactly all this agrees with the Scripture narrative, which 
implies throughout that James governed the Diocese of 
Jerusalem. 

He presided at the First Council of "Apostles, Elders 
and brethren," held in Jerusalem, a. d. 50 ; he summed 
up the argument and pronounced the decision : 6< Where- 
fore my sentence is," etc. 8 

St. Paul speaks of the messengers who carried the 
decrees of the Council to Antioch, as coming " from 
James." 9 Indeed, when St. Paul went up to Jerusalem 
to attend the Council, he speaks of " James. Cephas, and 
John, who seemed to be pillars," 10 giving James prece- 
dence over Peter and John in the Holy City. Fourteen 
years before, when St. Paul first went up to Jerusalem 
after his conversion, and spent a fortnight with St. Peter, 
he says : " Other of the Apostles saw I none save James, the 
Lord's brother," 11 who appears always to have resided in 
his diocese, while the rest of the Apostles were Missionary 
Bishops, Apostles at large. Twenty years later, when St. 
Luke and others accompanied St. Paul to Jerusalem, they 
had an interview with the Bishop, which St. Luke de- 
scribes in these words : " The day following, Paul went in 
with us unto James, and all the Presbyters were pres- 
ent." 12 When St. Peter was released from prison, he 

7. "Post passionem Domini, statim ab Apostolis Hierosalymoruui Episco- 
pus ordinatus." 

8. Acts, xv., 13. 9. Gal., ii., 12. 10. Id., 9. 11. Gal., 1., 18-19. 12. Acts, 
xxi., 18. 



AUTHORITY. 



68 



ordered that news of his escape should be carried to 
James. " Go show these things to James" 13 Indeed, as 
Dr. Mines (to whom the writer acknowledges much in- 
debtedness) puts it : " All antiquity agrees that James 
was Bishop of the Church at Jerusalem. ?? Here, then, we 
have the fourteenth Apostle. 

That St. Paul, though not one of the Twelve, was an 
Apostle, no one can doubt. Again and again he calls him- 
self an Apostle. He stood on precisely the same ground 
as the original Twelve, for he was appointed and commis- 
sioned by Christ Himself. He styles himself "An Apostle 
not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ." 14 
Twice he tells us that he was " not a whit behind the 
chiefest of the Apostles." 15 "Am I not an Apostle?" says 
he to the Corinthians ; and to Titus, he writes : "I am 
ordained a preacher and an Apostle" 

Not to prolong this part of the subject, I give a list of 
those who are expressly called "Apostles " in the Greek of 
the New Testament, in addition to the Twelve : Matthias* 
James, Paul, Barnabas, Andronicus, Junias, Epaphrodi- 
tus, Timothy, Titus, Silas, and Luke. The very name 
Apostle is applied to these eleven men, by God the Holy 
Ghost. Moreover, they are seen doing the same work as 
the Twelve, and are constantly mentioned by the Fathers 
and early historians as Apostles or Bishops ordained b} r 
the Apostles. 

For example, history and tradition bear witness to the 
fact that the Apostle Timothy was the first Bishop of 
Ephesus, and the Apostle Titus the first Bishop of Crete, 



13. Acts, xii., 17. 14. Gal., i., 1. 15. II Cor., xi., 5, and xii., 11. 



REASON'S FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. 

being ordained and appointed thereto by the Apostle 
Paul. The epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus not 
only accord with this statement, but are irreconcilably 
absurd on any other supposition, for they show that these 
men were left by St. Paul not only with power to do such 
things as all Presbyters could do, but also to superintend 
the whole work of the Church in their respective jurisdic- 
tions — to give order concerning the doctrine which the 
Presbyters were to preach ; to rectify all deficiencies ; to 
ordain Presbyters in all the cities ;. to examine into the 
qualifications of candidates for the Priesthood and the 
Diaconate, being careful to " lay hands suddenly on no 
man ; ; ' to have charge of promoting faithful Priests and 
Deacons : to settle the liturgical and sacramental systems 
on a complete and uniform basis, prescribing cc supplica- 
tions, prayers, intercessions and Eucharists,'* 16 for all men, 
for kings, etc.; to discipline the laity; to enforce obedience 
to the moral law; to regulate marriage ; to have a special 
care over the setting apart of widows and virgins as Sis- 
ters or Deaconesses ; to enforce the Creed or tl form of 
sound words," and after one or two warnings, to excom- 
municate c< a man that is an heretic." And whence came 
all this authority and power? St. Paul tells us, for he 
says to his " son Timothy : " Ci Stir up the gift of God 
which is in thee by the putting ox of my hands." 17 

16. See the Greek. 

17. EL Timothy, i., 6. The assertion here made that Timothy received the 
gift "By (did) the putting on" of St. Paul's hands, is not weakened (as some 
have claimed) by the expression, in I. Tim., iv., 14: "The gift that is in thee, 
which was given thee by prophecy, with (met a) the laying on of the hands of the 
presbytery." The assumption that this implies the right of Priests (Presbyters) 
to ordain, is wholly unwarranted. For it is clear that in the ordination of St* 
Timothy, mentioned in H. Tim., L, 6., St. Paul himself was the consecrator 



AUTHORITY. 



65 



I leave it to any candid reader to say whether the work 
of Timothy and Titus was not clearly and incontroverti- 
hly the work of a Bishop in the Church of God ? 

Besides the original Twelve and the eleven who are 
called Apostles in the New Testament, twenty-three in all, 
there are many more who are called " companions, fellow- 
laborers," etc., who seem to have done the same work, and 
who, though not expressly called Apostles in the Bible, 



["By the putting on of my hands "]. If the reference, in I. Tim., iv., 14, be to 
the same ordination, then the expression, 4 'With the laying on of the hands of 
the Presbytery," merely implies that certain men were associated with St. Paul 
in the act of ordination which he performed. Now, who were these men ? " The 
'Presbytery,'" says Dr. Blunt, "has been understood by St. Chrysostom, Theo- 
doret, Oecumenius, Theophyloct, Suicer, and all the best commentators, ancient 
and modern, to designate the College of Bishops"— i. e., the Apostles who assisted 
St. Paul in the consecration of Timothy to the Apostolic Episcopate, according 
to the rule which afterward universally prevailed, that at least three Bishops 
should take part in the ordination of every Bishop. The Apostles, it should be 
remembered, often called themselves Presbyters, for the greater includes the 
less. As late as A. D. 107, St. Ignatius speaks of the "Apostles " as "the Pres- 
bytery of the Church." 

If, on the other hand, we take the view that, while the act mentioned in II. 
Tim., i., 6, was the ordination of Timothy to the Episcopate, the act mentioned in 
I. Tim., iv., 14, was his previous ordination to the Priesthood, what then? Why, 
we may hold that the ordination which was undoubtedly performed by St. Paul as 
Bishop, was accompanied by the laying on of the hands of some Priests, as a 
token of their assent to the act— as has been customary in Western Christendom 
since the fifth century— though it would be an isolated instance, so far as we 
know, in the Eastern and Early Church. It must be remembered also that St. 
Ambrose, St. Hilary, and St. Jerome among ancient, and Calvin and many others, 
among modern interpreters, make the phrase, "of the Presbytery," refer to the 
Office to which Timothy was ordained:— "Neglect not the gift of the Priest- 
hood (Presbyteriou) that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the 
laying on of the hands." Here is what Calvin says of it : 

"Paul speaks of himself as having laid hands upon Timothy without any 
mention of any others having united with him. 4 1 put thee in remembrance that 
thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. 1 
His expression, in the other epistle, of 4 the laying on of the hands of the Presby- 
tery,' I apprehend not to signify a company of Elders, but to denote the ordina- 
tion itself; as if he had said, Take care that the grace which thou receivedst by 
the laying on of hands, when 1 ordained thee a Presbyter, be not in vain."— Cal- 
vin's 44 Institutes," Book IV., end of Chap. iii. 



66 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



are so called by the early Christian writers. For exam- 
ple : Dionysius, Gaius, Aristarchus, Archippus, Antipas 
(the " faithful martyr Crescens, Euodias, Linus, Clement, 
Mark, Judas, and the " Angels " of the Seven Churches in 
Proconsular Asia. These eighteen (to mention no others) 
should, therefore, be added to the twenty-three given 
above, as clergymen of the Early Church who ranked 
above the Presbyters and Deacons,, who were associated 
with the Apostles, called Apostles by the Fathers, and 
rated in history and tradition as Apostolic Bishops. Xor 
is there in the Xew Testament a single word which im- 
plies the " parity of the ministry," or makes against a 
genuine and permanent Apostolic Episcopacy. 



CHAPTER IX. 



PRIMITIVE EPISCOPACY AND ITS OFFICIAL TITLES. 

44 Christ and His princely race." 

—Lyra Apostolica, p. 67. 

BEFORE presenting the evidence for Episcopacy in the 
writings of the Fathers, it is necessary to make a 
remark touching the use of the words Apostle, Bishop, 
Presbyter, and Deacon, in the New Testament. 

# It has been shown that the Apostolic Church had a 
threefold Ministry: (a) The supreme and permanent order 
of Apostles, including both the original Twelve and those 
others who, as St. Jerome says, " were by degrees in pro- 
cess of time, 1 ordained Apostles by those whom the Lord 
had chosen." (b) The order of Presbyters who were or- 
dained in "every city." (c) The order of Deacons, an 

1. Some disingenuous controversialists have claimed this passage, as going 
to prove that Episcopacy was not primitive, because, forsooth, does not St. Jer- 
ome say that it arose "by degrees" and "in the process of time ?" They take 
care, however, not to put the whole passage before their readers, for that shows 
that the phrase, "by degrees and in the process of time, 1 ' means as occasion 
demanded during the lifetime of the Apostles, for it is distinctly affirmed that 
those others who were ordained Apostles, were ordained by those whom the Lord 
had chosen, i. e., the Twelve ; and if by them, certainly during their lifetime. 
St. Jerome's words are: " Paulatim vero, tempore procedente, et alii ab his quos 
Dominus elegerat, ordinati Apostoli. 11 If successors of the Apostles were 
ordained by the Apostles, and during the lifetime of the Apostles, then it is by 
Apostolic Authority that the Church has always been Episcopal. 



OS 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



account of which is given in Acts vi. That these three 
distinct orders by whatever names called, existed in the 
Apostolic Church, and have existed ever since, is as cer- 
tain as that the Church has existed at all. 

Some people, however, have stumbled at the apparent 
confusion of names by which these orders were called. 
But in the first place it should be borne in mind that a 
higher order always includes the lower, 2 so that an Apos- 
tle could call himself a "Presbyter," 3 or even a "Deacon." 4 
Indeed, Christ Himself, the great Head of the Church, is 
called an Apostle, a Bishop, a Priest, and a Deacon. 5 But 
on the other hand, a lower order could not appropriate a 
title which belonged to an higher order. Now it is not 
denied that the term Deacon is the distinctive appellation 
of the lowest order, Apostle of the highest order, and Pres- 
byter of the intermediate order. But the term Bishop 
(which means "Overseer") was not at first exclusively 
appropriated to one order ; but was used in its literal 
rather than its technical sense. Accordingly the Presby- 
ters are often called Bishops, as being Overseers or Pastors 
of a congregation, although their Order was always clearly 
distinguished from the order of the Apostles, to whom 
gradually the title of Bishop became limited. How this 
came about would be easy to surmise even if we had no 
positive evidence. The word Apostle means one who is 
sent; and as, one by one, those who had received their 

2. As St. Hilary expresses it, " In the Bishop are contained all other orders." 
"Nam in Episcopo omnes ordines sunt, quia Primus Sacerdos, hoc est Princeps, 
est Sacerdotum." 

3. I. S. Pet., v., 1 ; II. St. John, i., 1 ; III. St. John, i., 1 (Greek). 

4. Acts, i., 17, 25; xx., 24; I. Cor., iii., 5; II. Cor., iii., 6, and vi., 4 (Greek). 

5. Heb., iii., 1; I. Pet., ii., 25; Heb., v., 6; Kom., xv., 8 (Greek). 



AUTHORITY. 



69 



commission directly from Christ ("As My Father hath sent 
Me, even so send I you" Q ) — those "adamantine Martyrs 
and Athletes " of the Early Church, went np to God in 
chariots of fire ; their humble successors felt naturally 
enough, that there was a certain propriety in limiting to 
them the name of Apostle, and contented themselves with 
the title of Bishop 7 by which the Apostles, the commis- 
sioned chief pastors of the Church, have ever since been 
known. As an holy Father has said : u Apostoli sunt Epis- 
copi" — the Apostles are the Bishops. All this, I say, 
might be readily surmised, to account for the change of 
name ; and the writer begs to say that he conceived this 
explanation long before he stumbled upon those Patristic 
authorities which positively assert the same. Theodoret, 
a Syrian Bishop, a disciple of the great St. Chrysostom, 
writing about the year 440, says : " The same persons 
were in ancient times called indifferently, Presbyters or 
Bishops, at ivhich time those who are now called Bishops, were 
called Apostles" In his commentary on First Timothy, 
iii., 1, after making the same statement, he adds : " In 
process of time, the name of Apostle was left to those who 
were in the strict sense Apostles [i. e.,sent directly by Christ 
Himself], and the name of Bishop was confined to those 
who were anciently called Apostles." The same thing is 
said by St. Jerome, St. Hilary, St. Chrysostom, and St. 



6. St. John, xx., 21. 

7. " The name Bishop hath been borrowed from the Grecians, with whom it 
signifieth one which hath principal charge to guide and oversee others. The 
same word in ecclesiastical writings being applied unto Church governors, at the 
first unto all, and not unto the chiefest only, grew in short time peculiar and 
proper to signify such episcopal authority alone as the chiefest governors exer- 
cise over the rest." — Hoolter. 



70 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Clement, who was a Priest and teacher in Alexandria in 
the year 189. 8 

It must be remembered that this gradual change of name 
involved no change in the character of the office? If we in 
the American Church should gradually introduce the cus- 
tom of calling our Bishops, Presidents or Superintendents, 
it would not alter their office nor affect their Apostolic 
functions. We have already, whether wisely or not, 
changed several of the titles used in our Mother Church of 
England, without affecting the position or work of those 
to whom the title belongs. We call our Primate "the 
Presiding Bishop," but his office is none the less that of 
Primate. We call our Episcopal Coadjutors by the syn- 
onymous term, " Assistant Bishops," and our Ecclesiastical 
Synods by the less technical and less correct designation of 
" Convention." 

I have dwelt thus at length upon what is a very simple 
matter, the change of a name (a matter of philology rather 
than of Ecclesiastical order), because controversial oppo- 
nents of the divine institution of Episcopacy have a 

8. Bingham, in his "Orig. Ecc, II., 2, 1," quotes also an ancient but un- 
known writer who called himself Ambrose, who speaking of those who were or- 
dained to succeed the Apostles, says . " They thought it not becoming to assume 
to themselves the name of Apostles, but dividing the names they left to Presby- 
ters the name of Presbytery, and they themselves were called Bishops." 

9. I cannot forbear to quote here a striking passage from "Mine's Pres. 
Clerg. Looking for the Church, page 413." Speaking of St. Timothy's ordination 
as Bishop of Ephesus, he says : "We care not by what name you call him— 
Priest, Presbyter, Bishop, Suffragan, Superintendent, Ruler, Governor, Evange- 
list, Missionary, Moderator, Primus-Presbyter, Apostle, Assistant of the Apostle, 
Messenger, Prelate, Angel, Antistes, Princeps, Prasses, Propositus, Archon, 
Proestus, or Prefect (as Calvin styles James in the Church at Jerusalem)— call 
h mby what name you please ; write it in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew ; read it for- 
ward; read it backward; it comes to the same thing; Timothy succeeds to the 
powers and prerogatives of Paul." 



AUTHORITY. 



71 



bland way of saying " Episcopacy is an innovation. All 
learned and pious Episcopalians have now been forced to 
admit that in the early Church there was no difference 
between Bishop and Presbyter 1" Who ever denied it? 
Theodoret, Chrysostom, Hilary, Jerome, and Clement 
were " Episcopalians," and they pointed it out a thousand 
years before the first non-episcopal church was founded ! 
But just as long as the Presbyters were called Bishops, 
just so long were the Bishops called Apostles. The Orders 
were distinct, and remained unchanged. 

In some localities the name Apostle lingered as the 
official title of a Bishop, a good many years afte*r the 
death of St. John, as is apparent in the u Didache" or 
u Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," and in occasional 
passages in the early Fathers. 10 The two names, Apostle 
and Bishop, shade off into each other. While Eusebius 
says : " It is recorded in history that Timothy was the 
first Bishop of Ephesus, and Theodoret and others call him 
" the Apostle of the Asiatics the eloquent and scholarly 
Chrysostom blends the titles and unifies the truth when 
he calls him u The Apostle and Bishop of Ephesus." 

10. The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, recently discovered 
by Bryennios, the Metropolitan of Nicomedia, was probably written early in the 
second century. It still calls the Pastors "bishops," i. e. overseers, but it speaks 
also of an order of Apostles (called also "Pr< phe s" and "High Priests' 1 ''), who 
appear to be sort of Missionary Bishops, whose duty it was to make brief visita- 
tions of the various parishes. I quote from Chapter XI: "And with regard to 
Apostles and Prophets, do with them according to the ordinance of the Gospel. 
Let every Apostle who cometh to you be received as the Lord.' 1 Says the editor 
of the "Church Times: 1 ' "As the Teaching disposes of the Baptistic heresy 
with one barrel, so it brings down Independency with the other; for while it as- 
sumes that Bishops (i. e., Presbyters) and Deacons constituted the ordinary 
stated ministry, it speaks of Apostles and Prophets visiting the local churches 
from time to time, and it directs them to be 4 received as the Lord. 1 It also de- 
clares that they are 'High Pbiests; 1 it demonstrates that there was an order of 
Apostles and prophets other than the Twelve." 



CHAPTER X. 



PRIMITIVE EPISCOPACY AXD THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOS- 
TOLIC FATHERS. 

41 If I know anything of Church History, it is that Episcopacy is a divine in- 
stitution/"— Bi'sft op Wordsworth. 

"All over the earth, from India to Spain, the Episcopate was a definite or- 
ganization. It is impossible to acconnt for this hierarchical uniformity without 
pre-snpposing an original Divine institution. If we consider the difficulty of the 
transmission of intelligence, the rarity of the occasions of communication, the 
deep-rooted ethnical peculiarities of the varying tribes which were converted to 
Christianity, we can in no way account for it save on the supposition of the 
threefold ministry "being a part of the original constitution of the Christian 
Church."— Bp. Forbes. 

\ MONG all the early Christian writings, including those 
i~\ which the Church has selected from the rest and de- 
clared to belong to the Canon of Holy Scripture, we will look 
in vain for anything like an argument in defense of Episco- 
pacy. I fancy I hear some reader exclaim : " Well ! well ! 
how did that happen ?" Why, simply because Episcopacy 
was not an open question. No one thought of sitting down 
to write a treatise to prove that the Bishops were the suc- 
cessors of their predecessors (the Apostles), and that the 
polity of the Church was Episcopal, any more than of 
laboring to prove that the Roman Empire was governed 
by the Emperor, or that a human being has a head on his 
shoulders ! It was precisely the same as in the case of 
Infant Baptism : no Council ever legislated the Episco- 
pate into being or decreed that infants should be christ- 



AUTHORITY. 



78 



ened. Nobody was wild and presumptuous enough to 
challenge these primitive and God-given institutions. 
But Councils — Ecumenical and Provincial — canons, ser- 
mons, treatises, commentaries and epistles by the score, 
allude to Episcopacy as primitive and universal, always 
assuming it as a matter of course — a much stronger proof, 
by the way, than volumes of defense, which would imply 
that it was at least questioned in some quarters. 

The Church, wherever it spread, from India to Britain, 
from Thrace to Ethiopia, from Babylon to Spain, was 
always and everywhere Episcopal. To argue that it was 
anything else — 6. g., Papal or Congregational — is just as 
absurd as if the American Congress, in the face of the 
Constitution and the laws, and in defiance of history, 
should argue that " these United States " were not designed 
to be a Republic, but an Absolute Monarchy, or, on the 
other hand, an Anarchy, having no government at all. 
And yet nothing is more common than to hear well-mean- 
ing people say (as was remarked recently by a Doctor of 
Divinity in the Presbytery of Philadelphia 1 ) that the 
Church of the New Testament was Presbyterial in its order 
and polity. Presbyterial ! So it was, if you ignore the 
Apostles who had the oversight of the Presbyters. So, 
too, is the Anglican Church Presbyterial — if you leave 



1. See "The Independent," February 12, 1885, p. 4. Dr. Bacon, a Congrega- 
tional minister, addressing the Presbytery, said: "The nearest reproduction, in 
modern times, of the Church polity of the New Testament, seems to me to have 
been in the original type of the Presbyterian Church, as instituted by John 
Calvin, of Geneva." Calvin himself, however, was not so sure of it, otherwise 
he would never have used the strong language he did in favor of Episcopacy (see 
his commentary on Titus, Ch. I, v. 5, and Instit. lib. 4, Ch. 4 and 12). Nor would 
he have tried so hard to get Apostolic Orders from the English Church (see Strype's 
Life of Archb. Parker, pp. 140 and 141; 



74 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



out the House of Bishops ! England would be a Republic, 
were it not for the Crown ; and Russia, an Anarchy, but 
for the fact that it happens to be governed by the Czar. 
The early Christians were Quakers forsooth, but with the 
somewhat important difference that they had the Ministry, 
the Sacraments, and the Divine Liturgy. The early 
Church was Diaconal, but for those venerable Presbyters 
who out-ranked the Deacons. In like manner the early 
Church was Presbyter ial, but for the stubborn fact that 
over the Presbyters was an order of Chief Pastors, divinely com- 
missioned, unto the end of the world. Now in all candor, I ask, 
is it reasonable in judging the polity of a Church, to leave 
out of consideration the most notable, primitive, perman- 
ent, and authoritative part of its system? Nevertheless 
this amazing process — be it sophistry or paralogism — is 
gone through with by everyone who can see Presbyterian- 
ism or Congregationalism in the Church of the New Tes- 
tament. 2 Moreover, as the original Twelve did not die 
until they had ordained scores of Apostolic Bishops to 
succeed them, this rational (!) process must be followed 
up by the logical legerdemain of those who (as one has 
said with a pardonable pun), " can translate Jerome, 
Chrysostom, Augustine, and even Clemens and Ignatius, 
by the hair of the head, over to the side of Presbyterian- 
ism ! " 

We must not expect to find a settled Diocesan Episcopacy 
ail at once — with mitres and crosiers, Archdeacons, Ex- 
amining Chaplains, and Standing Committees, which are 
but the insignia and impedimenta of the office. The 



2. Ton might as well Bay that a three-story house is only two stories high, 
because you are not willing to look high enough to see the upper story. 



AUTHORITY, 



75 



Apostles held what may be called a roving commission, as 
Bishops at large. The world was the joint Province of 
their Jurisdiction. It was only gradually that it was par- 
celled out among them and their fellow-laborers. Of the 
thirty men who are actually called Apostles 3 in the New 
Testament, at least fifteen appear to have settled down to 
a sort of local jurisdiction, as Diocesan Bishops, viz : 
St. James, in Jerusalem 4 ; Titus, in Crete 5 ; Epaphroditus, 
in Philippi 6 ; Timothy in Ephesus 7 ; succeeded by Onesi- 



3. 1 include here the seven who are called "Angels" of the Seven Churches, 
Angel being a poetic synonym of Avostle, in exact keeping with St. John's liter- 
ary and mystical style. Angel in Greek means messenger, one who is sent ; and 
Avostle means precisely the same, and is sometimes translated messenger, as m 
Phil., ii., 25. In the Angels of the Seven Churches no candid scholar can fail (as 
Archbishop Trench says) "to recognize the Bishops of the several Churches. So 
many difficulties, embarrassments, improbabilities, attend every other solution, 
which all disappear with the adoption of this, while no others rise in their room, 
that were not other interests, often, no doubt, unconsciously, at work, it would 
oe very hard to understand how any could ever have arrived at a different conclu- 
sion.'" Thiersch, one of the greatest of German scholars, says: "What are the 
Angels of the Seven Churches but Superior Pastors, each at the head of a congre- 
gation, and at least similar to the later Bishops. The ancients looked on them 
as Bishops. Of all the Church Fathers who touch upon the matter, not one 
thinks of any other interpretation."— Quoted in Timlow's "Plain Footprints," 
Chap, ix., which see. 

4. " [Jacobus] ab Apostolis, Hierosalymorum Episcopus ordinatus," St. Jer- 
ome, Scr. Eccl., c. 2. See also Euseb., ii., 23. 

5. See Titus, i., 1, et passim; Euseb., iii., 4; St. Chrys. on Tit., i., 4 and 5; 
Theod. on I. Tim., iii., 1 ; St. Jerome, Catal, Scr. in Tit. The ancient tradition 
in Crete is that he lived till the age of 94 in Gortys, his see city. The cathedral 
of the island is dedicated to Irm. 

6. "Epaphroditus was called the 'Apostle' of the Philippians, because he 
was entrusted with the Episcopal government; for those whom we now call 
Bishops, were more anciently called Apostles.'"' Theod. on Phil., ii., 25; and see 
Theod. and St. Chrys. on Phil., i., 1. Also St. Jerome, who calls him the Apostle 
of the Philippians, and says: "Erat Compar Officii," i. e., with St. Paul. 

7. See Epists. to Tim., passim. St. Jerome says: "Timotheus a Paulo 
Ephesiorum Episcopus ordinatus" "Timothy was ordained Bishop of the 
Ephesians by Paul." See the authorities cited above concerning Titus. The 
Acts of the Gen. Coun. of Chalcedon are referred to by Bishop Wordsworth, as 
&he crowning evidence. 



76 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



mus 8 , (the "Angel of the Church in Ephesus ;") St. John 
(who also himself made his home at Ephesus, perhaps 
doing the work of a diocesan, between the Episcopates of 
Timothy and Onesimus, but certainly returning to Ephe- 
sus after his banishment to Patmos, and laboring as a sort 
of Archbishop ; for Clement of Alexandria 9 tells us that 
he 4 ' used to make journeys to neighboring Gentile terri- 
tories, to ordain Bishops in some, and in others to set ia 
order whole Churches ") ; the Angel of the Church in 
Smyrna who was either St. Polycarp, 10 or possibly his 
predecessor ; the Angel of the Church in Pergamos, the suc- 
cessor of Antipas; Carpus, the Angel of the Church in 
Thyatira ; and the three who presided over the Churches 
of Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. St. Peter also re- 
mained for a long time as Bishop of Antioch. Indeed St* 
Chrysostom speaks of St. Ignatius as succeeding St. Peter 
in Antioch. 11 



8. Onesimus was at least Bishop of Ephesus, ten or twelve years later, for 
he is lovingly mentioned as such by Ignatius, in his letter to the Ephesians, 
chap, vi., written before 107 A. D. 

9. See Qui s Div. Salv., c. 42. 

10. See letter of Ignatius to " Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Sniyr- 
neans." Tertullian says he was consecrated Bishop of Smyrna by St. John (See- 
Praes. Her., 32). Irenaeus, who had often conversed with him, says the same. 
See also Euseb., iv., 14, Jerome, and others. 

11. The Eoman Catholic theory that St. Peter went to Ptome, A. D. 40, and 
was Bishop of Ptome for 25 years, is demonstrably absurd. His residence at 
Antioch must have beer much later, for at that time the Church there was under 
the leadership of its founders, the Apostles Paul and Barnabas. (Acts, xi., 19, et 
Seq . Moreover, St. Ignatius, who succeeded him in Antioch, could not have 
done so in A. D. 40, as he was then but 10 years old. To borrow the words of 
Canon Farrar: "As late as A.D. 52, St. Peter was at Jerusalem, and took an 
active part in the Synod of Jerusalem (Acts, sv., 7) ; and he was then laboring 
mainly among the Jews (Gal., ii., 7, 8, 9). In A. D. 57, he was traveling as a 
Missionary with his wife (I. Cor., ix., 5). He was not at Rome when St. Paul 
wrote to that Church, in A. D. 53; nor when St. Paul came there as a prisoner in 
A. D. 61, nor during the years of St. Paul's imprisonment, A. D. 61-63, nor when. 



AUTHORITY. 77 



During the latter part of the first century, St. John 
alone of the original twelve survived, but many other 
Apostles, Angels, Bishops, or High Priests (as they were 
sometimes called) were still alive, who had been ordained 
by him or his peers. There was St. Clement, the Bishop 
of Rome, the " fellow-laborer " of St. Paul, who had been 
ordained by him or by St. Peter. There was St. Ignatius, 
that glorious Apostle, who had sat at the feet of the be- 
loved John, the true successor of St. Peter in Antioch ; 
while the venerable Polycarp, the friend of St. John, was 
still ruling his diocese in the spirit of his master, till past 
the middle of the second century. These are the earliest 
witnesses to the antiquity and authority of Episcopacy. 
They bridge over the so-called gap between the Church of 
the New Testament and the Church of the second century. 
Let us hear their testimony. 

St. Clement, the companion of St. Paul, the Bishop of 
" the Church sojourning at Rome," wrote a letter to the 
Church at Corinth, not later than A. d. 97. In it he 
clearly teaches that there are " diverse orders in the 
Church," which he likens to the ranks of officers in the 
Roman army. "All," says he, "are not generals, nor 
commanders of a thousand, nor of a hundred, nor of 



he wrote his last Epistles, A. D. 66 and 67. If he was ever at Rome at all, which 
we hold to be almost certain, from the unanimity of the tradition, it could only 
have been very briefly before his martyrdom. And this is, in fact, the assertion 
of Lactantius (about A. D. 330), who says that he first came to Rome in Nero's 
reign ; and of Origen (about A. D. 254), who says that he arrived there at the close 
of his life; and of the Pracdictio Petri, printed with the works of St. Cyprian. 
His ' Bishopric ' at Rome probably consisted only in his efforts, about the time of 
his martyrdom, to strengthen the faith of the Church and especially of the Jew- 
ish Christians." {Early Days of Christianity, i., 117.) See also the "The Pet- 
rine Claims at the Bar of History."— Church Quarterly Review, April, 1879. 



78 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



fifty.'* 12 Speaking of the duties of the clergy and laity, he 
uses language which shows that the Christian Ministry 
was threefold : ' 4 His own peculiar services are assigned to 
the High Priest, and their own proper place is prescribed 
to the Priests, and their own special ministrations devolve 
on the Levite; while the layman is bound by the laws 
which pertain to laymen." 13 He also says : "The Apostles 
knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that contentions 
would arise about the office of the Episcopate ; and for 
this reason, being endued with perfect foreknowledge, they 
appointed those already mentioned, and handed down a suc- 
cession, so that when they should depart, other approved 
men should take their office and ministry." 14 

Our next witness is St. Polycarp, that grand old Bishop 
and Martyr. Born while St. Paul and St. Peter were still 
alive, he was for more than thirty years contemporary 
with his master, St. John, and survived him by half a 
century, having, as he told the Roman Governor, served 
Christ u eighty and six years." He is portrayed to us by 
his pupil, St. Irenseus, the Bishop of Lyons, in a passage 
of charming simplicity but tantalizing brevity : " I could 
describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat 
and taught ; his going out and his coming in ; the whole 
tenor of his life ; his personal appearance ; how he would 
tell of conversations he had held with John and with 
others who had seen the Lord ; how he would make men- 



12. Chap. 37. 

13. Chap. 40. In like manner, says St. Jerome (in his Epist. ad Ei\), "What 
Aaron and his sons and the Levites [three orders'] were in the Temple, that let 
the Bishops, and Presbyters, and Deacons, claim to be in the Church. : ' 

14. Chap. 44. 



AUTHORITY. 



TO 



tion of their words, and of whatever he had heard from 
them respecting the Lord." 15 

Again Irenaeus says of him : " Polycarp also was not- 
only instructed by the Apostles, and conversed with many 
who had seen Christ, but was also by Apostles in Asia, or- 
dained Bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in 
my early youth, having always taught the things which 
he had learned from the Apostles, and which the Church has 
handed down, and which alone are true." 16 

A single Epistle of St. Polycarp has come down to us 
of the genuineness of which there can be no doubt. It is 
written as by a Bishop, surrounded by his u Corona Pres- 
byterorum." " Polycarp and the Presbyters with him to 
the Church of God sojourning at Phillippi." The Epistle 
is beautiful and breathes the spirit of a St. John. Its 
chief evidential value, however, as to the Episcopate, is to 
be found in the fact that this holy and apostolic man sets 
the seal of approval to the teachings of St. Ignatius, that 
devout and stalwart Episcopalian, the Bishop of Antioch. 
" The Epistles of Ignatius," says he, " written by him to 
us, and all the rest of his Epistles which we have by us, 
we have sent to you as you requested. By them ye may 
be greatly profited ; for they treat of faith and patience, and 
all things that tend to edification in the Lord?'' Let us appeal 
then to St. Ignatius. 

He was born about a. d. 30. Tradition has assigned 
him the honor of being the " little child" whom Jesus 
placed in the midst of the Apostles. 17 He succeeded St. 



15. From the De Ogdoade of Irenaeus. 16. Adv. Her., iii., 3, 4. 17. St. 
Matt, xviii., 2. 



80 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Peter as Bishop of Antioch, 18 the capital of Syria, and so 
he alludes to himself not only as the Bishop of Antioch, 
but as "the Bishop of Syria." A vivid account of his 
martyrdom (written probably about a. d. 110), says that 
in the year a. d. 98, " Ignatius, the Disciple of John the 
Apostle, a man in all respects of an Apostolic character, 
governed the Church of the Antiochians," and that he had 
done so for many years. The story of his bold confession 
before the Emperor Trajan, in Antioch, a. d. 107, his 
arrest, his journey (like St. Paul's) to Rome, and his 
glorious martyrdom in that city, which is " drunken with 
blood of martyrs," is familiar to all. On that memorable 
journey he was permitted to tarry quite a while at Smyrna, 
of which the venerable Polycarp was the Bishop, and 
whither the Bishops of Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles, 
accompanied each by several Priests and Deacons, came to 
comfort him, or rather be comforted by him, and to re- 
ceive the Martyr's benediction. While in Smyrna he 
wrote four letters ; to the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the 
Traillians, and the Romans. Also at Troas, where he was 
detained a few days, he wrote three letters ; to the Phila- 
delphians, to the Smyrnseans, and to Polycarp, their 
Bishop. There are eight other letters extant, purporting 
to have been written by St. Ignatius, but as their authen- 
ticity is doubtful, I pass them by. But these seven genu- 
ine letters of the Apostolic Bishop, Saint and Martyr — 
every one ought to read. And I leave it to any candid 
reader whether such letters could possibly have been 



18. He is quoted froin and mentioned with approval by Justin Martyr, Iren- 
aeus, and Origen (who styles him "Ignatius, the second Bishop of Antioch, com- 
ing after Peter") ; by Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, Gelasius, etc. 



AUTHORITY. 



81 



written to leading Churches in the east and as far west as 
Rome, unless Episcopacy had been the universal polity of 
the Church, and believed by such competent witnesses as 
these personal friends of St. John, to be primitive, God- 
given and necessary. Notice, then, a number of extracts 
which I have collected from the short and uncorrupted 
form of the Epistles, which even the most critical scholars 
allow to be genuine and authentic. 

In his Epistle to the Ephesians he speaks of having 
seen their " Bishop, Onesimus," and blesses God for hav- 
ing granted them " such an excellent Bishop." 19 He men- 
tions also one of their Deacons and several Presbyters, and 
exhorts them, saying : a Be ye subject to the Bishop and 
the Presbytery " [i. e., the whole body of the Presby- 
ters]. 20 He lays great stress upon the universality of the 
Episcopate : " For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable Life, 
is the manifest Will of the Father ; as also Bishops, to the 
uttermost bounds of the earth, are so by the will of Jesus 
Christ." 21 " Wherefore," he goes on to say, " it is fitting 
that ye should run together in accordance with the will of 
your Bishop, which thing also ye do; for your justly re- 
nowned Presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the 
Bishop as are the strings to the harp." 22 What a diocese that 
must have been! " Let us, then/' he continued, "be 
careful not to set ourselves in opposition to the Bishop." 23 
" For we ought to receive every one whom the Master of the 
House sends to be over his Household, as we would receive 
Him that sent Him. It is clear, therefore, that we should 
look upon the Bishop, even as the Lord Himself ; 24 and 

19. Chap. 1. 20. Chap. 2. 21. Chap. 3. 22. Chap. 4. 23. Chap. 5. 
24. Cf. our Lord's words to the Apostles: "He that receiveth you receiveth 
Me," St. Matt., x., 40, and St. John, xiii., 20. 



82 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



indeed Onesinms himself greatly commends your good 
order in God, and that ye all live according to the truth, 
and that no sect has any dwelling place among you." 25 

In his Epistle to the Magnesians, he says : " I have had 
the privilege of seeing you through Damas, your most 
worthy Bishop, and through your worthy Presbyters, Bas- 
sus and Apollonius, and through my fellow-servant, the 
Deacon Sotio, whose friendship may I ever enjoy, inas- 
much as he is subject to the Bishop as to the grace of God, 
and to the Presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ." 26 The 
Bishop of the Magnesians, although a young man, was, by 
virtue of his Episcopal Office, exalted above all the rest, 
whether clergy or laity, and just as St. Paul had written 
to the young Bishop of Ephesus, some fifty years before, 
" Let no man despise thy youth," so now Ignatius writes 
to the Christians in Magnesia : " It becomes you also not 
to treat your Bishop too familiarly on account of his 
youth, but to yield him all reverence, having respect to the 
Power of God the Father, as I have known even holy Presbyters 
do, not judging rashly from the youthful appearance of 
their Bishop." 27 A Bishop, then, though a young man, 
is entitled to the homage of his Presbyters, though " holy 79 
and venerable. And this is the teaching of a saint who 
was living while our Saviour was still on earth, the com- 
panion of St. John, and for more than forty years the 
Bishop of the city where the disciples were first called 
Christians. Again he says : " Let nothing exist among 
you that may divide you ; but be ye united with your 
Bishop, and them that preside over you." 28 " Neither do 
anything without the Bishop and Presbyters." 29 " Your 

25. Chap. G. 26. Chap. 2. 27. Chap. 3. Cf. I. Tim., iv., 12. 28. Chap. 6. 
29. Chap. 7. 



AUTHORITY. 



88 



most admirable Bishop, the well-compacted spiritual crown 
of your Presbytery, and the Deacons who are according to 
God." 30 [Various persons] ' salute you, along with Poly- 
carp, the Bishop of the Smyrnseans." 31 

In his Epistle to the Trallians, whom he says he salutes 
"in the Apostolic character, 1 ' he speaks of u Polybius, your 
Bishop who has come to Smyrna." 32 " Let all reverence 
the Deacons as the appointment of Jesus Christ, and the 
Bishops as Jesus Christ, Who is the Son of the Father, and 
the Presbyters as the Sanhedrim of God and assembly of the 
Apostles. Apart from these there is no Church." 33 Nor 
was there any thing new or startling to those early Chris- 
tians in this statement, for he immediately adds : "Concern- 
ing all this, I am persuaded that ye are of the same opinion." 

In his Epistle to the Romans he says : " God has 
deemed me, the Bishop of Syria, worthy to be sent/' etc. 34 
" Remember in your prayers the Church in Syria, which 
now has God for its Shepherd instead of me. Jesus Christ alone 
will oversee it." 35 Strange words for Ignatius to have used 
if he were only one among the many equal (!) Presbyters 
in the great metropolis of Antioch, with its two hundred 
thousand inhabitants. The fact is, no one but one who is, 
at least in theory, an Episcopalian, can read the letters of 
Ignatius without either becoming a Churchman or else 
bidding farewell to reason, logic, and common sense. 36 

In his letter to the Philadelphians he speaks of them as 

30. Chap. 13. 31. Chap. 15. 32. Chap. 1. 33. Chap. 3. 34. Chap. 2. 35. Chap. 9. 

36. If any one doubts this, let him see how Dr. Miller, the champion of 
Presbyterianism, undertook to find Presbyterianism in St. Ignatius ( I ). In all 
the world of controversy, religious, political, philosophical, scientific, literary, 
Dr. Miller's exploit with Ignatius is unparalleled for sophistry, audacity, and 
unconscious suicide. I advise every reader to get a copy of Mine's " Presbyterian 
Clergyman Looking for the Church" ^Dutton, N. Y.), and read chapter xxiii., 



84 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



" in unity with the Bishop, the Presbyters and the Deacons, 
who have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus 
Christ. " 37 " If any man follows him that makes a schism 
in the Church, he shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. 55 38 

In his Epistle to the Smyrnseans he says : " See that ye 
follow the Bishop even as Jesus Christ does the Father, 
and the Presbytery as ye would the Apostles, and the Dea- 
cons as being the institution of God. Let no man do any 
thing connected with the Church without the Bishop. 
Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is adminis- 
tered either by the Bishop or by one to whom he has 
entrusted it. Wherever the Bishop shall appear, there let 
the multitude also be ; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, 
there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the 
Bishop [i. e., without his authority] either to baptize or 
to celebrate the Holy Communion * * * so that every 
thing that is done may be secure and valid. 5 ' 39 "It is 
well to reverence both God and the Bishop. 55 40 

In his Epistle entitled " Ignatius, who is called Theopho- 
ros, to Poly carp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyrnseans," 
he bids his Episcopal brother: " Let nothing be done with- 
out thy consent. 55 41 "My soul be for theirs who are sub- 
missive to the Bishop, to the Presbyters and to the Deacons; 
and may my portion be along with them in God.' 542 

So much, then, for the testimony of the Apostolic Bish- 
op of Antioch, which comes to us ratified and endorsed by 
the Angel of the Church in Smyrna. 

especially pp. 454 to 465, on "Dr. Miller's extracts from Ignatius, something 
odd.*' That chapter alone is worth ten times the price of the book. See also Dr. 
Bowden's patient and exhaustive reply to Dr. Miller : " The Apos. Orig. of Epis." 
HalFs "Epis. and the Pap. Saprem," and "Kip's Double Witness," pp. 70 to 71. 
37. In the dedication. 

3S. Chap. 3. 39. Chap. 8. 40. Chap. 9. 41. Chap. 4. 42. Chap. 6. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE WITNESS OF THE FATHERS — CONTINUED. 

"And drink the untainted fount of pure antiquity." 

— Lyra Apostolica, p. 154. 

" If I might leave one request to the rising generation of clergy * * * it 
would be, In addition to the study of Holy Scripture, which they too studied 
night and day, Study the Fathers."— Dr. Pusey. 

IT should never be forgotten that Gibbon, the keen skep- 
tical historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, although he ignores the spiritual authority which 
the Bishops derived from the Apostles, nevertheless freely 
admits (for he could not deny it) that " the Episcopal form 
of government [by which he meant organized Diocesan 
Episcopacy] appears to have been introduced before the 
close of the first century ; " that its " advantages " were " obvi- 
ous and important ; " that it cc had acquired at a very early 
period the sanction of antiquity;" that u 'Bishops, under 
the name of Angels, were already [i. 0., before the end of 
the first century] instituted in the seven cities of Asia 
and that " ( 'Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo ' — no Church with- 
out a Bishop — has been a fact as well as a maxim, since 
the time of Tertuilian and Irenseus." Gibbon moreover 



86 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



declares that "after we have passed the difficulties of the 
first century, 1 we find the Episcopal form of government univer- 
sally established, until it was interrupted by the republican 
genius of the Swiss and German reformers." 2 

The learned French Protestant, Guizot, says : " The 
Apostles themselves appointed several Bishops. Tertullian, 
Clement of Alexandria, and many fathers of the second 
and third century do not permit us to doubt this fact." 

The " Learned Grotius," 3 himself a Presbyterian, through 
force of circumstances, was candid enough to give up the 
attempt to invalidate Episcopacy. Like many of the con- 
tinental reformers, he regretted that the Church of Holland 
had lost the Apostolic Ministry. He was as familiar with 
the Fathers as most Protestants are ignorant of them ; and 
this is what he says of their evidence for Episcopacy : " To 
reject the supremacy of one pastor above the rest is to 
condemn the whole ancient Church of folly or even of 
impiety." "The Episcopacy had its commencement in 
the times of the Apostles. All the fathers, icithout exception, 
testify to this. The testimony of Jerome 4 alone is sufficient. 
The catalogues of the Bishops, in Irenseus, Socrates, Theo- 

1. r. e., before the death of St. John. And what after all are these "diffi- 
culties of the first century"' ? Why, as I have shown, the gradual transition 
from the general Missionary Episcopate of the Apostles to the local jurisdiction 
of their successors, together with the gradual change of name, which I trust was 
made clear in Chapter IX. But call these natural processes " the difficulties of 
the first century," if you please; they are a thousand times less than our Papal 
and Presbyterial brethren have to encounter, when they try to fit their respective 
systems on the Early Church. 

2. These quotations from Gibbon are all taken from the Dec. and Fall, chap, 
xv., and from his notes on that chap., 110, 111, 112. 

3. A. D. 15S3 to 1645. 

4. Jerome ! And yet he is the one whom Dr. Miller and others, by bold 
misquotations from his Epistle to Evagrius, would metamorphose into a Presby- 
terian. Can it be that such have ever read that Epistle ? We will have a taste 
of it ere long. 



AUTHORITY, 



ST 



doret, and others, all of which begin in the Apostolic age, 
testify to this. To refuse credit in a historical matter, to 
so great authorities? and so unanimous among themselves, is 
not the part of any but an irreverent and stubborn dispo- 
sition. AVhat the whole Church maintains, and was not 
instituted by Councils, but was always held, is not with any 
good reason believed to be handed down by any but Apos- 
tolic Authority." 5 

Not one bona fide quotation can be adduced from any 
Father or Council of the Early Church which makes 
against Episcopacy. We Churchmen do not begin to realize 
the strength of our position. Some of us are frightened by 
the timid and treacherous utterances of our own sick and 
disloyal comrades ; or are for yielding up the Citadel of 
God, whose walls can stand the artillery of hell, because, 
forsooth, the sham batteries of a Dr. Miller, or the spiked 
guns of some roving Monsignor are directed against us. 
It does ns good, once in a while, to " walk about Zion, and 
go round about her, and tell the towers thereof, and mark 
well her bulwarks." We shall at least be able to show 
our wandering brothers that we have better reasons for 
staying in the dear old homestead than they ever had for 
leaving it. There is to-day a widespread feeling among 
thoughtful Dissenters which is often expressed in some 
such way as this : " Churchmen, after all, are no fools ! " 

For some strange reason, Apostolic Succession is a 
stumbling-block to many. And yet Apostolic Succession 
rests on a stronger historical basis than the Canon of Holy 



5. For Grotius' testimony in full, see his Annotations on the Consultations 
of Cassander, his comments on Acts, xiv., and Testimonies concerning him 
appended to his De Veritate Religionis Christianas. 



S8 . REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Scripture itself. During the first thousand years of the 
Christian era, there were several instances of Churches 
which, though they had the Creed, had never seen a com- 
plete copy of the New Testament ; but all the while not 
one single instance of a Church without Bishops, Priests, 
and Deacons. If any one doubts this, let him try for him- 
self to answer this, as yet unanswered, challenge which the 
" Judicious Hooker " made in the year 1594, to those who 
had set up a non-Episcopal Ministry: "Avery strange 
thing sure it were, that such a discipline as ye speak of 
should be taught by Christ and His Apostles in the word 
of God, and no Church ever have found it out, nor re- 
ceived it till this present time. * * * We require you 
to find out b ut one Church upon the face of the whole earth, that 
hath been ordered by your discipline or hath not been ordered by 
ours, that is to say, by Episcopal regimen, since the time that the 
blessed Apostles were here conversant." Q 

6. Pref. to Eccl. Pal., § 4. Cf. also the challenge of Bishop Jewell, first 
made at St. Paul's Cross, Nov. 26,1559; repeated March 31, 1560. " If any learned 
men of all our adversaries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring 
any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor or Father, or out of 
any old General Council, or out of the Holy Scriptures of God, or any example 
of the Primitive Church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved; * * * 
that the Bishop of Rome was then called an Universal Bishop, or Head of the 
Universal Church; * * * I promised then that I would give over and sub- 
scribe unto him.*' (Bp. Jewell's Works, I, p. .20, Ed. Parker Soc), quoted in Dr. 
Huntington's admirable little book, "The Ch. Idea," p. 71. I cannot forbear to 
quote here the strong language of Mines (Pres. Clerg., p. 341): "Episcopacy 
existed wherever the Church existed, and the world has again and again been 
challenged to produce one single Church in all Europe, Africa, or Asia, which in 
the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, or the sixth century, was for 
one moment Presbyterian. When Presbyterians demand of Episcopalians a 
chain of Bishops from [to-day] back to the days of the Apostles, Episcopalians 
produce it — link after link, name after name— back to the hands of St. Thomas in 
Syria, St. John in Ephesus, St. James in Jerusalem, St. Mark in Alexandria, St. 
Peter and St. Paul in Rome. But when Episcopalians ask Presbyterians to pro- 
duce, not a succession of Churches reaching beyond Luther and Calvin and a 



AUTHORITY. 



89 



I shall now give a few extracts from the early Fathers, 
which will corroborate what we have already learned from 
the Bible, and from SS. Clement, Poly carp and Ignatius. 

The unknown author of that beautiful treatise, the 
* c Epistle to Diognetus " (about a. d. 130), who calls him- 
self a u Disciple of the Apostles,' 1 says : " The tradition of 
the Apostles is preserved," 7 which he could not have said, 
had the then universal Episcopacy of the Church been 
contrary to their teaching. Hegesippus, who was born 
about A. d. 100 — Vicinus Apostolorum temporum, as St. 
Jerome calls him 8 — wrote a Church History, which was 
familiar to Eusebius and St. Jerome, but which has since 
been lost. He traveled over a large part of the known 
world for the express purpose of ascertaining the teaching 
and practice of the Apostles, as retained in the Churches 
which they founded. Eusebius has preserved a few frag- 
ments of his writings, 9 in which u he declares of himself, 
that as he had made it his business to visit the Bishops of 
the Church, so he had found them all unanimous in their 
doctrines ; and that the same books of the Law, the same 
Gospel and Faith * * * had been constantly pre- 
served along with the Succession of the Bishops in all the 
Churches." Moreover he says : u The first heretic was The- 
busis, who was disappointed in his expectations of a 
Bishopric." 

gulf of a thousand years, but one poor, single, solitary Church, in a world full of 
Churches, that in the first, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth 
century, was bona fide Pre»byterian ; they return the writ with non est invert us; 
it cannot be found." [The futile attempts to find it among the Chuldees are well 
known.] 

7. Chap. 10. 

8. De Scrip., c. 22, "Near the time of the Apostles." 

9. Euseb. Eel. Hist., IV., 22, as quoted by Bowden, Letter VII. 



REASONS FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Dionysius, the wise and holy Bishop of Corinth, who 
lived to a. d. 176, wrote a number of letters, fragments 
of which are preserved by Eusebius 10 — one to the Athe- 
nians, in which he speaks of the martyrdom of their 
Bishop, Publius (early in the century), and mentions his 
successor, Quaclratus : n one to the Churches in Crete, in 
which he praises Philip, their Bishop ; one to the Churches 
in Pontus, in which he mentions Palma, their Bishop ; 
one to Pinytus, the Bishop of the Gnosians, in which he 
urges him not to enforce celibacy upon his clergy, — to 
which the ascetic Bishop replied, attempting to justify 
his course. 12 All of which shows, as indeed do all inci- 
dents and allusions in the literature of the Early Church, 
that the Episcopal polity prevailed. He also wrote a letter 
to Soter, the Bishop of the Church in Rome. 

St. Irenseus (a. d. 120 to 202) had been a disciple of 
St. Polycarp. Leaving the East he accompanied Pothinus, 
a companion and equal of St. Polycarp, on a mission to 
Gaul, and settled in the city of Lyons. Pothinus was a 
Bishop, ordained by St. John or by one whom St. John 
Lad ordained — which is of interest to us, as it is generally 
supposed that the old British Church derived its Orders, 
in part at least, from this source ; and at all events a suc- 
cessor 13 of Pothinus in the See of Lyons was one of the 

10. Id. 

11. This Quadratus, the second or third Bp. of Athens, A. B. ICO, "was,"' 
says Dr. Mahan ^Ch. Hist., p. 114), "a disciple of the Apostles, many of whose 
miracles he had seen with his own eyes. * * * Becoming Bishop of Athens, 
he labored with great success in re-establishing the Church which in that part of 
Greece had fallen into decay." He also wrote a calm and able defence of Chris- 
tianity, which he presented to the Emperor Hadrian, who reigned from A. D. 
117 to 13S. 

12. See again Bowden's seventh letter. 

13. Viz : Etherius, thirty-first Bishop of Lyons, who, with Virgilius, Bishop 
of Aries, ordained Augustine 



AUTHORITY. 



91 



consecrators of Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. 

After the martyrdom of Pothinus in the dreadful Lyon- 
nese persecution of a. d. 177, Irenseus, who was the lead- 
ing Presbyter of the Gallic Church, was made Bishop of 
Lyons, and seems to have exercised a sort of Primacy 
over the Churches of Gaul. 14 Himself a Bishop, and the 
pupil of a Bishop whom St. John had loved and ordained, 
lie was certainly in a position to know the polity of the 
<early Church. Let us hear him 

He says : " The tradition of the Apostles is manifest 
throughout the whole world ; and we are in a position to 
Teckon up those who were, by the Apostles, ordained Bishops 
in the Churches, and the Succession of those men to our oum time. 
If the Apostles had known hidden mysteries, they would 
lave delivered them, especially to those to whom they 
were also committing the Churches themselves. For they 
were desirous that those men should be very perfect and 
blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving be- 
hind as their successors, delivering up their own place of gov- 
ernment (magisterii) to these men." 15 

He speaks also of a those to whom the Apostles did 
commit the Churches ; " 16 and again : u The Bishops to 
whom the Apostles did commit the Churches." 17 In one 
place he calls Bishops ic Presbyters," but he distinguishes 
them from ordinary Presbyters, just as we would to-day, 
loy describing them as Presbyters who have the Apostolic 
or Episcopal succession. These are his words : " Obey the 
Presbyters who are in the Church, those who, as I have 



14. Ens., v. 23. 15. Adv. Haeres, iii., chap. 3, §1. lrt. iii., chap. 4, § 1. 
17. v, chap. 20, § 1. 



92 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



shown, possess the Succession from the Apostles, those 
who, together with the Succession of the Episcopate, have re- 
ceived the certain gift of truth, according to the good 
pleasure of the Father. But [it behooves us] to hold in 
suspicion others who depart from the primitive Succession 
and assemble themselves together in any place whatso- 
ever, either as heretics of perverse minds or as schis- 
matics.'' 18 

Our next witness is Polycrates, whose testimony is thus 
summed up by Dr. Cutts : 19 " Polycrates, Bishop of Ephe- 
sus, writing a. d. 196, says that at that time he himself 
had been sixty-five years a Christian. He was, therefore, 
born about thirty years after the death of St. John, and 

18. iv., 26, § 2. The whole passage is too long to quote, but is valuable as 
showing the good Bishop's holy horror of breaking "the Fe.lowship of the 
Apostles." After comparing heretics to Xadab and Abihu (Lev., x., 1 and 2), he 
likens Dissenters or such as "exhort others against the Church of God," to 
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (Num., xvi., 1-33) ; while as to schismatics, or 
"those who cleave asunder and separate the unity of the Church,"' he likens 
them to Jeroboam (I. Kings, xiv., 10). Irenaeus also gives what he calls the 
44 Successions of the Bishops " in the Church at Rome, choosing this 41 very an- 
cient and universally known Church,'' because ""it would be very tedious in 
such a volume as this to reckon up the Successions of all the Churches." The 
list is as follows: "The blessed Apostles [SS. Peter and Paul] committed into 
the hands of Linus the Office of the Episcopate. Of this Linus, St. Paul makes 
mention in his Epistles to Timothy [II. Tim., iv., 21] ; to him succeeded Anacle- 
tus; and after him in the third place from the Apostles [observe the plural. 
Irenaeus knew nothing of St. Peter's having any exclusive right in Rome] Cle- 
ment was allotted the Bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed Apostles, 
and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the 
Apostles still echoing in his ears, and their traditions before his eyes. "Nor was 
he alone in this, for there were many still remaining who had received instruc- 
tions from the Apostles." (And here I must put in a word to thoughtful readers. 
Is it possible that these early Bishops and others who had been taught by the 
Apostles would have maintained Episcopacy, unless the Apostles had so taught 
them ? — sit verbum sat sapienti.) "To this Clement succeeded Evaristus," and 
so he gives the names down to Eleutherius, who, says he, 44 does now in the 
twelfth place from the A postles hold the inheritance of the Episcopate." 

19. Turning Points in Gen. Ch. Hist., p. 121. 



AUTHORITY. 



93 



was contemporary with Simeon of Jerusalem, Ignatius, 
Polycarp, and others, disciples of the Apostles. He, writ- 
ing about the time of keeping Easter, appeals to the tradi- 
tion of former Bishops and martyrs. * *■ * Among 
others, he mentions Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and 
Martyr ; Thraseas, Bishop of Eumenia and Martyr ; Saga- 
ris, Bishop of Laodicea and Mart} r r ; seven Bishops of his 
own kindred, and great multitudes of Bishops who had 
assembled with him to consult about the Easter ques- 
tion." 

Clement of Alexandria, during the Episcopate of Demet- 
rius (about a. d. 185), likens the Orders of Bishop, Priest, 
and Deacon to the ranks of the blessed Angels. He also 
says there are many rules, some of which relate to Presby- 
ters, others to Bishops, and others to Deacons. 20 He 
alludes to St. John's ordaining Bishops in various cities 
of Asia ; 21 and he calls Bishop Clement of Rome " an 
Apostle.' 1 

Tertullian, a Presbyter of the Church in Carthage (born 
a. d. 135, died a. d. 217), uses these words : u The Chief 
or Highest Priest, who is the Bishop, has the right of giving 
Baptism, and after him the Presbyters and Deacons, but 
not without the Bishop's authority." 22 Speaking of the 
Churches in the regions where St. John labored, he says : 
" The Order of the Bishops, when traced up to its original, 
will be found to have John for its author." 23 The heretics 
of his day he boldly challenges in these words : " Let them 

20. Pedagogue, Chap. xii. 

21. Quis Div. Salv., Chap. 42. 

22. Quoted by Bowden, Let. vi. 

23. "Ordo tamen Episcoporum ad originem recensus, in Johancm stabit 
auctorem" Adv. Mar., IV., 5. 



94 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



produce the original of their Churches, let thern show the 
Order of their Bishops, that by their Succession deduced from 
the beginning, we may see whether their first Bishop had 
any of the Apostles or Apostolic men, who did likewise 
persevere with the Apostles, for his Ordainer and Prede- 
cessor ! For thus the Apostolical Churches hand down their 
records ; as the Church of Smyrna from Polycarp, whom 
John the Apostle placed there ; the Church of Rome from 
Clement, who was in like manner 24 " ordained by Peter; and 
so the other Churches can produce those constituted in the 
Bishoprics by the Apostles, and so regarded as transmitters of the 
Apostolic seed" 25 He also calls a Bishop's seat " the Apos- 
tolic Chair.''' 

The profound and versatile Origen, in the beginning of 
the third century, 26 also bears witness to the divine author- 
ity of Episcopacy. In one of his Lectures he asks : a If 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, be subject to Joseph and 
Mary, shall not I be subject to the Bishop who is ordained 
of God to be my Father ? Shall I not be subject to the Pres- 
byter who by divine appointment is set over me?" 27 
Speaking of the duties common to all people, he adds : 
u Besides these general debts, there is a debt peculiar to 
Deacons, another to Presbyters, and another to Bishops, 
which is the greatest of all, and exacted by the Saviour, of 
the whole Church, who will severely punish the non-pay- 
ment of it." 28 



24. Tertullian, by the way, like all the Early Fathers, knew nothing of the 
BUhop of Rome being appointed to any higher or different office than the rest of 

the Bishops. 

25. De Praescrip. Haeret., c. 32. 27. Quotedin Bowden's 5th Letter, 

26. He was born A. D. 1S6. 28. Quoted by Cutts, p. 122. 



AUTHORITY. 



95 



Time would fail me were I to attempt to set before you 
the testimony of Firmilian, the Bishop of Csesarea, a. d. 
233 ; of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, a. d. 248, that 
Saint, Scholar, Apostle and Martyr, who, if not the first, 
was at least the deepest and clearest expounder of the 
philosophy of the Episcopate, as the unifying principle of the 
Church, and as being itself an Unity 29 in ivhich all Bishops 
throughout the world do equally participate; 30 and of St. 
Ambrose, St. Jerome, 31 and St. Augustine, and especially 

29. " Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur." — D& 
Unit, Eccl. 

30. St. Cyprian, writing to Cornelius, the Bishop of Rome, says: "This is 
and ought to be our chief care and study, that we maintain the unity which was 
delivered by our Lord, and His Apostles to us their Successors." 

31. Although St. Jerome again and again asserts the universality and Apos- 
tolical authority of Episcopacy, Presbyterians lay great store by his letter to 
Evagrius. Yet after reading it with care, I can find nothing in it which can be 
used against Episcopacy. He was writing to rebuke a certain person who under- 
took to rank a Deacon above a Presbyter. His whole argument amounts merely 
to this: That in the New Testament (as we have seen) the terms Bishop and 
Presbyter are used interchangeably, and that the Apostles sometimes call them- 
selves Presbyters (which of course proves nothing, as they also call themselves 
Deacons). He asserts that the elevation of one Presbyter above another was a 
"remedy against schism," but he tells us elsewhere that it was done by the 
authority of the Apostles, and as early as A. D. 57. He does not say, as some 
Presbyterians claim, that in Alexandria the Presbyters ordain one of their num- 
berto be their Bishop, but that they only nominate him ("Nominabant")— quite a 
different thing. Finally, it is in this very letter which Presbyterians quote cer- 
tain passages from, that St. Jerome lays down the real distinction between a 
Bishop and a Presbyter in a way which neither Presbyterians nor Roman Cath- 
olics can endure: it is the exact theory of the Greek and Anglo-Catholics: 
"What doth a Bishop do, which a Presbyter may not do, Ordination excepted?" 
Then he proceeds: "Wherever there is a Bishop, whether at Rome or at 
Eugubium [which was a very insignificant diocese], whether at Constantinople 
or Rhegium, whether at Alexandria or Tanis, he is of the same validity, ar.d of 
the same Priesthood. Neither the power of wealth nor the weakness of poverty 
can make a Bishop more exalted or more depressed; but they are all Succes- 
sors op the Apostles. * * * That which Aaron and his sons, and the Le- 
vites were, in the Temple, that let the Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons 
claim to be in the Church" Surely if our Presbyterian brethren can find any 
"crumbs of comfort" in the Epistle of St. Jerome to Evagrius, they are most 
welcome to them. Such as they be, they are the largest crumbs of the sort that 
fall from the Patristic board. 



96 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCH2IAX. 



the testimony of Eusebius, 32 who. by order of the Emj ,-ror, 
hacl all the records of the Empire put at his disposal for 
the great task of writing a history of the first three cen- 
turies of the Church. 

Such, in brief, is the history of the early Patristic evi- 
dence for the Catholic Episcopate. There is nothing to 
offset it. It cannot be gainsaid nor denied. 

I cannot leave this branch of my subject without reiter- 
ating the maxim quoted above: " Study the Fathers." 
Study them for the intrinsic value of their writings, and 
for their unimpeachable witness to the facts of primitive 
Catholicity. 

The Christian Church, though at the start she contained 
'•'not many wise men after the flesh," 33 though she was 
"unto the Greeks foolishness," 34 nevertheless soon made 
herself felt in the world, not only as a religious, but as an 
intellectual power. Then were laid the foundations of the 
first institutions of Christian education. The Catechetical 
School of Alexandria — founded by St. Mark and adorned 
by Athenagorus, Pantaenus, Clement, Origen — the Cathe- 
dral Schools of Antioch and Edessa, with others, became 
strong centers of religion and learning, and were the par- 
ents of the parish and public school, the germ of the 
Christian college, university, and theological seminary. 
Then began that long procession of Christian scholars — 
men of saintly lives, who added to their virtue knowledge. 

32. "Eusebius, the historian of the early Chnrch, who lived in the latter 
part of the third and early part of the fourth centuries, derives the Bishops of 
all Churches from the Apostles. He gives exact and authentic catalogues of the 
Bishops who presided in all the principal cities of the Roman Empire, aud from 
the Apostles down to his own time. — Cutts. 

33. I. Cor., i., -26. 34. I. Cor., i., 23. 



AUTHORITY, 



97 



Then shone forth the Churchly piety of an Ignatius ; the 
Scriptural and Theological devotion of an Irenseus ; the 
chaste, philosophical acumen of a Justin Martyr ; the 
cogent and fervid logic of a Tertullian ; the prodigious 
and inexhaustible and unparalleled learning of an Origen ; 
the unconquerable, enthusiastic, triumphant Faith of an 
Athanasius ; the pious, practical, and beneficent ecclesias- 
ticism of a Cyprian and an Ambrose ; the stern, towering, 
indefatigable talent of a Jerome ; the supreme, universal, 
immortal excellence of an Augustine ; and the hallowed 
genius and consecrated eloquence of a Chrysostom. And 
thence onward to our own times, the natural succession of 
Catholic Scholars runs side by side with that other and 
diviner succession — to which they have ever paid the 
homage of consentient and supporting testimony — the 
" Apostolic Succession " of Bishops in the Church of God. 



CHAPTER XII. 



IF THE PRIMITIVE CATHOLIC CHUBCH WAS NOT EPISCOPAL. 
WHAT WAS IT ? 

" Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo." 

"It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and Ancient 
Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of Ministers 
in Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests and Deacons.''— Preface to the Ordinal 

" Controversy may beat against these words, like waves against a rock, but 
it will never move them." — Bp. Chas. Wordsworth's 44 Outlines of the Christian 
Ministry,' 1 p. 137. 

A LEARNED priest of the American Church, who was for 
many years a Presbyterian minister, has often re- 
marked to the writer : u 0, when I was a Presbyterian, and 
used to read the Fathers, I had to resort to most ingenious 
explanations; but as soon as I began to read them from a 
Church standpoint I found nothing to explain — it was all 
plain sailing." He reasoned thus with himself : I have 
always read the Fathers with the assumption that the 
primitive Church was Presbyterian, and by hook and by 
crook 1 have managed to explain away the difficulties. 
But why not make the experiment of reading them from 
an Episcopalian standpoint? So, beginning with the New 
Testament, he read all the ancient Christian writings, and 
found (as we have seen) that Christ gave a perpetual com- 
mission to His Apostles, that they ordained not only 
Deacons and Presbyters, but others who were called Apos- 
tles ; that Timothy and Titus were appointed to an office 



1. See Appendix to this Chapter. 



AUTHORITY. 



99 



and work, including the right of ordaining, as clearly 
Episcopal as the office and work of the Bishop of New 
York or of Minnesota ; that when St. John wrote to the 
Seven Churches there was some one at the head of each 
Church who was responsible for the faith and practice of 
that Church and those who were teachers in it ; that the 
Fathers constantly alluded to the three orders of the min- 
istry, those in the first order being "Successors of the 
Apostles," and all equal, whether at Rome or elsewhere ; 
that those writers who had actually sat at the feet of the 
blessed Paul, or Peter, or John, were as stanch Episcopa- 
lians as those who lived later ; that the Church, as it 
appears on the pages of history, was always Episcopal, 
and believed itself to have been so by divine ordering ; 
and that assuming the Catholic Church to have started 
Presbyterian, it is impossible to assign any date when it 
became Episcopal, or to account for the fact that no protest 
was made at a revolution so radical and gigantic. 

To the Churchman it is all clear enough — the historic 
Church was Episcopal because it was born so, the Apostles 
being the Bishops (as the Fathers testify) : there was no 
break, no imaginary change to account for, nothing to ex- 
plain away. But with the Presbyterian, how is it? Alas ! 
he must in the first place set aside the Saviour's promise 
to be with His Apostles until the end of the world. Then 
he must prove that the Apostolate was confined to the 
original Twelve, 2 Holy Scripture to the contrary notwith- 

2. I have heard Dissenters boldly assert that the Eleven did very ivrong to 
choose Matthias, and that God set aside their action by appointing St. Paul to 
take the place of Judas ( ! ), and that there could, by no possibility, be more than 
twelve Apostles— although, at the very least, twenty-three (23) are called " Apos- 
tles " by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament. 44 But," the Presbyterians argue, 
"the Apostles worked miricles, and no one can be an Apostle unless he can 



100 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



standing ; that SS. Timothy and Titus and the "Angels" 
of the Seven Churches were not Bishops ; in short, that 
the Apostles left no successors, although the Fathers con- 
stantly assert that they did. And having proved all this, 
he must needs show how his primitive Presbyterian 
Church did afterwards become Episcopal, and how it got 
the firm belief that it had always been so. 

If Christ had meant His Church to be Presbyterian, St. 
John would have known it, and so would his friends, the 
Bishops of Antioeh, and Smyrna, and their friend, the 
Bishop of Lyons, and the rest. Or, to reverse the process, 
the Church of the third century, which was nothing if not 
Episcopal, must have known whether the Church of the 
second century was Episcopal or not ; and the Church of 
the second century must have known whether the Church 
of the first century was Episcopal or not ; and the vener- 
able Bishops and teachers who were associated with St. 
John in the latter part of the first century must have 
known whether or not the Church was Episcopal from the 
start. We. have had their testimony. There is no break 
in the chain. 

Take the admission of Gibbon and of all candid scholars 

show the same signs of his Apostleship." But if that argument proves anything, 
it proves too much; for the early Presbyters worked miracles, and the Deacons, 
too — notably, SS. Stephen and Phillip. Ergo, nobody can be a Presbyter or a 
Deacon unless he can work miracles; or even a layman, for that matter. The 
miraculous powers of the Early Apostles and elders and brethren belonged to the 
Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and were not a part of their perma- 
nent office. A Presbyterian minister once challenged the late Bishop Doane to 
prove his Apostleship by drinking prussic acidl I am not informed whether 
that venerable Apostle stooped to notice the impious taunt, but certainly he 
might have replied: I accept the challenge on the condition that you, Mr. Minis- 
ter, will prove yourself to be even a layman by doing the same thing. For it is 
written: " These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they 
cast out devils, * * * and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt 
them" etc. (St. Mark, xvi., 17 and 18.) 



AUTHORITY. 



101 



that the Church was universally Episcopal at the close of 
the first century. How shall we account for it ? Well, it 
either started so, or else if it started Presbyterian, the 
early Presbyterians abandoned it so soon, so unanimously, 
so universally as to show that Presbyterianism was regarded 
as a stupendous failure — so soon that the change was made 
before the Apostles were cold in their graves; so unani- 
mously that not a single Priest or layman lifted his voice 
against the usurpation of those who made themselves 
Bishops ; so universally that not a single " Presbytery," 
nay, not one solitary isolated congregation, in the forests 
of Britain, in the mines of Spain, in the valleys of Gaul 
and Italy, on the deserts of Africa, or the fertile banks of 
the Nile, on the Islands of the Mediterranean, in the cities 
of Greece, on the sands of Arabia, on the prairies of Baby- 
lon, in the jungles of India, or on the hallowed hills of 
Galilee and Judea— not one poor single solitary Presby- 
terian Congregation survived to witness against Episcopal 
usurpation and say like Job's messenger : " I, even I only, 
am escaped alone to tell thee." 

If you strain out the gnat of primitive Episcopacy, you 
have got to swallow a camel larger than the wooden horse 
of Troy, viz., this : The assumed Presbyterianism of the Apos- 
tolic Church, in one generation, unanimously and universally 
changed to Episcopacy, an Episcopacy, too, which knew 
nothing of any change, but always supposed itself to have 
been primitive and Apostolic ! I can only murmur the 
trite maxim of Horace : 

Credat, Judseus, Amelia, 
Non ego! 



102 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



And yet every Dissenter swallows this " camel," which 
is a necessary postulate of all non-Episcopal systems. 

Let there be no dodging of the issue. At an early date 
the Church was Episcopal. If it was founded so, well and 
good ; if not, what was it originally, and when and how 
did it change ? It was not originally Presbyterial, for it 
is absurd to talk of the " parity of the ministry," when 
the two lower orders of Priests and Deacons were subject 
to the oversight of the Apostles. While the Apostles 
lived, therefore, the Church was undeniably Episcopal. 
But after their death? Well, as has been shown, there 
was no break. The post-Apostolic Episcopate is dove- 
tailed into the Episcopate of the Apostles. But waiving 
this, and passing over that numerous company of men 
who were also called Apostles, suppose we grant, for the 
sake of argument, that after the death of all the original 
Twelve, about a. d. 100, the whole Church was Presby- 
terial — say for ten years, or, to be generous to a fault with 
historic facts, say fifty years — how on earth was the unani- 
mous and universal change then made to Episcopacy ? It 
is as if the United States should suddenly become a monar- 
chy, and yet not one state, not one county, not one town, not 
one man — be he congressman, soldier, or private citizen — 
utter a word of protest, and not a single allusion to so revo- 
lutionary a change be made by any friend or foe, citizen, 
or foreigner, in contemporary and subsequent history. 

I ask our Presbyterian friends, using the word to include 
all Christian bodies which have lost the Apostolic Succes- 
sion : Would it be possible for one of your presbyters in 
every synod, presbytery, conference, or association in your 
denomination, to usurp to himself the office and functions 



AUTHORITY. 



103 



of a Bishop, involving the sole right to ordain and con- 
firm, the care and oversight of all the ministers in his 
district, etc., and this spontaneously in all parts of your 
denomination, even in distant countries, without any 
opportunity for concerted action ; and yet not a solitary 
voice be raised in protest, and not a single line left to 
show that such a change had taken place ? You would 
say : " The idea is preposterous — the bare attempt in one 
Presbytery would raise a tempest in a tea-pot, and we 
should never hear the last of it ! " And yet you believe, 
and would have us believe, that precisely that very thing 
was done throughout the whole Catholic Church, and that, 
too, in an age when Apostolic tradition was fresh, univer- 
sal, and most highly esteemed. 

Revolutions do not take place in that way. Had the 
Early Church been Presbyterial (and, by the way, the 
sorriest compliment one can pay Presbyterianism is to 
call it the primitive polity, for if so, those early Presby- 
terians showed no love for it) — had the early Church, I 
say, been Presbyterial, we should have seen evidence of it 
in the New Testament, which we do not ; then gradually 
in some quarters, but not possibly in all quarters, some 
ambitious presbyters might have attempted to lord it over 
God's heritage (although ambitious clerics are not the 
kind that court martyrdom, and the early Bishops were 
the first and most conspicuous mark for the persecutor), 
and some at least would have been unsuccessful in their 
attempted usurpations, as they would be to-day if they 
tried it in any Presbyterial denomination. Moreover, the 
thing could not be " done in a corner ; " it would have 
been known ; it would have been commented on ; it 



104 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



would have raised a commotion, as all real changes, inno- 
vations, " developments,' 5 even trifling ones, have done 
ever since. Take, for example, the " Papacy." It was not 
primitive ; it was opposed in its germination and in every 
stage of its growth ; and it has never yet been accepted by 
four out of the five great Patriarchates of the Catholic 
Church. Observe : A new order is created above the 
Bishops ; it takes many centuries for it to effect even a 
partial usurpation ; it makes a tremendous stir ; it splits 
the Catholic Church into two, and at length into three 
divisions. 3 And yet Presbyterians would have us believe 
that a far more radical revolution — one which destroyed 
the u primitive Presbyterian Church," by adding the "new 
and man-made order of Bishops " — was carried, not in 
one Patriarchate or portion of the Church, but throughout 
the whole world, without any stir or opposition, without 
leaving a document or a tradition of any part of the trans- 
action, and all within a few years of the death of St, 
John ! ! 

Is it reasonable — I submit — is it reasonable ? Nay, is 
it not rather an insult to logic and common sense ? How 
much wiser, how much easier to accept the simple, natural 
fact, that the historic Church is Episcopal, because it 
started so. 4 

3. We might say /our, including the "Old Catholics," and also charge it 
with being the real cause of the nearly 400 Protestant sects. 

4. "There is no doctrine or tenet of the Christian religion in which ail 
Christians in general have, for the space of fifteen hundred years, so unani- 
mously agreed, as in this of Episcopacy. In all ages and times down from the 
Apostles, and in all places, through Europe, Asia, and Africa, wheresoever there 
were Christians, there were also Bishops. Even where Christians differed in 
other points of doctrine or custom, and made schisms and divisions in the 
Church, yet did they all remain unanimous in this, in retaining their Bishops." 
— Jablonsky, quoted by Rev. Wm. A. Rich, in "The Examination Examined." 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII. 



DESPERATE EXPEDIENTS TO GET RID OF THE BISHOPS OF 
THE EARLY CHURCH. 

/^vNE desperate expedient was to assume that each early 



\J Bishop was only a Pastor over the one " Presbyterian 
Church " in the city, as James in Jerusalem, Ignatius in 
Antioch, Onesimus in Ephesus, Dionysius in Alexandria, 
Cyprian in Carthage, Cornelius in Rome, etc. They take 
care not to mention Titus in Crete ; for there were one hun- 
dred cities in Crete, and Titus was commanded to u ordain 
Priests in every city" — queer work for a Priest who was 
simply Pastor of one parish ! But how is it with the 
others ? Poor St. James ! What an " overworked Pastor " 
he must have been ! And what a monstrous " meeting- 
house " he must have had to preach in ! When he was 
" installed " over his pastoral charge, there were more 
than 3,000 members of his congregation; a few days later 
(see Acts, iv.) 5,000 more were added in a day ; and we 
read : " The Lord added to the Church daily" " Believers 
were more added," " multitudes — both of men and 
women," " the number of the disciples multiplied in Jeru- 
salem greatly, and a great company of the Priests were 
obedient to the faith." About twenty years later, St. James 
and all the Presbyters of Jerusalem [the " Ruling Elders," 




106 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



who composed the "Session," forsooth], said to St. Paul : 
"Thou seest, brother, how many thousands" — literally, 
how many tens of thousands — " myriads " — " of Jews there 
are which believe" (Acts xxi., 20). Why, some Presby- 
terian scholars have admitted that there must have been, 
at that time, 50,000 Christians in Jerusalem. And consid- 
ering that their Churches or places of worship were small 
(mostly in private houses), with daily services, weekly 
Eucharists, and thorough pastoral care, there must have 
been at least fifty congregations, and fifty to one hundred 
clergy under St. James. Jerusalem was a great city; the 
Jews had more than 325 Synagogues in it. These facts 
speak for themselves. 

And so with Ignatius in Antioch, a city of over 200,000 
inhabitants. He had many ministering Priests and Dea- 
cons under him, and his jurisdiction extended so far out- 
side the city, that he calls himself " the Bishop of Syria." 

As to Onesimus, the Bishop of Ephesus, he succeeded to 
St. Timothy, who was certainly not a mere Pastor, but an 
Apostolic Overseer. And the idea of only one parish in 
Ephesus, which fifty years before had a goodly number of 
Presbyters — not " Ruling Elders," but such as had the 
duty and power to " feed the Church of God," i. e., Priests 
and Preachers — is simply absurd. 

As to Alexandria, why, there were several parishes or 
Churches there while St. Mark was still alive (see Euseb. 
II., c. 17), and the Nicene Council alludes to it as an "An- 
cient custom " that the " Bishop of Alexandria " should 
have metropolitan jurisdiction " over all Egypt, Lybia, 
and Pentapolis." And St. Jerome says: "At Alexandria, 
from Mark the Evangelist down to the times of the Bish- 



AUTHORITY. 



107 



ops Heraclas and Dionysius, the Presbyters always nomi- 
nated as Bishop one chosen out of their own body and 
placed in a higher grade." — Jerome, Ad Evag. 

The same is true as to St. Cyprian in Carthage, where 
were many thousands of Christians, and where Geisericus 
found " the Bishop and a very great multitude of clergy " 
( maximam turbam clericorum), and these, not "Ruling 
Elders," for their Bishop, Cyprian, calls them " Glorious 
Priests " — gloriosis sacerdotibus. A few years later we have 
the names of the Cathedral and ten of the Churches of 
Carthage. While Cornelius, the Bishop of Rome, had 
under him, at that time, forty-six Presbyters and seven 
Deacons, besides sub-deacons, lay -readers, etc. (See Eu- 
seb., VI., c. 43.) 

" The earliest Bishops of Rome, we have no hesitation 
in affirming, were diocesan Bishops. We learn from Tac- 
itus that in Rome, in the persecution under Nero, ( a vast 
multitude ' were apprehended, and convicted of the crime 
of being Christians. Had that vast multitude, in that 
vast city, but a solitary Presbyter, a simple parish Bishop, 
to minister to them and to watch over their souls ? And 
if there were many — how did it come to pass that twelve 
of them in succession, from Linus in the time of the 
Apostles, to Eleutherius in the time of Irenseus, attained so 
marked a pre-eminence that the names of those twelve 
alone were thought worth recording ? " — (From p. 70 of 
an excellent little pamphlet on Episcopacy, entitled " The 
Examination Examined," by Rev. Wm. A. Rich, Priest 
in the Diocese of Albany.) 

Many Presbyterian scholars, seeing the absurdity of 
this notion, have advanced the theory that the Bishops of 



10S REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



the early Church were merely the " Moderators of the 
Presbyteries" [Sic], I think it would be a surprise to 
those venerable Apostles now in Paradise, if they could 
hear of it. Well, call them " Moderators," if you will ; 
but Moderators who held a life position, as those early 
" Moderators " did, who, like Timothy and Titus, ordained 
alone (which no Presbyterian Moderator ever thought of 
doing) ; who tried and deposed Priests and Deacons : 
whose office (to which, by the way, they were always set 
apart by a new Ordination) exalted them, even though 
young men, like Timothy or Damas, over the heads of the 
holy seniors; who were the unifying and governing power* 
each in a given district, including some central city and 
the adjacent country ; who claimed to be " Successors of 
the Apostles;" who called themselves "Bishops"; who 
did everything which a Bishop does to-day, and which a 
Moderator does not do — such a " Moderator," I say, by 
whatever name you call him, is a Bishop and an Apostle. 

u That which we call a rose, 
By any other name would smell as sweet." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



A FEW FRAGMENTS THAT REMAIN TOUCHING APOSTOLIC 



"It is as impossible for an impartial man to doubt whether there was a suc- 
cession of Bishops from the Apostles, as it would be to call in question the suc- 
cession of the Roman Emperors from Julius Caesar, or the succession of Kings in 
any other country."— Archbishop Potter , of Canterbury. 

"The doctrine of Apostolical Succession is indeed established by the plain 
sense of Holy Scripture; but the presumption also in its favor derived from its 
Mstory is singular and overwhelming. Other doctrines develop slowly; this 
starts forth at once. Other doctrines find their first formal statement in Fathers 
removed by a century or even more from apostolic times ; this is enunciated and 
enforced in the most emphatic words by those who had been taught by the 
Apostles themselves. Other doctrines have been disputed from time to time, 
and have worked their way to acceptance by the gradually elaborated balance and 
combination of opposite truths ; this one held undisputed and absolute posses- 
sion of men's beliefs throughout the Church for fifteen hundred years." — Had- 
dan on Apostolical Succession. 



'HERE are still several lines of argument in defense of 



A primitive Episcopacy, which I have not even hinted 
at, but which are incontrovertible and all point the same 
way. 

Such are the Canons enacted by the Early Church, not 
to create or introduce Episcopacy, but to guard it as an 
Apostolic trust, and hand it down to the ages to come, 
particularly the "Apostolic Canon " requiring three Bish- 
ops to take part in the ordination of every Bishop. This 



SUCCESSION. 




110 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



ancient custom, which was made binding on the whole 
Church by the Council of Nicsea, both shows how impor- 
tant was the preservation of the Episcopal Succession in 
the estimation of the Fathers, and is also a guarantee that 
the Succession has not been lost through the ages. Apos- 
tolic Succession is not a chain consisting of a single row of 
links — although that would be strong enough — but rather 
an intricate network such as no spider ever wove, and no 
one strand of which is essential to the continuity of the 
whole. To prove it, take a net of wire rings and strands^ 
each ring representing a Bishop, and the interlacing strands 
his sacramental connection with those who ordained him, 
and with those whom he, in conjunction with others^ 
ordained ; extend it so as to represent one century or 
eighteen centuries of the Church's life ; then apply a gal- 
vanic current at one end of the net ; of course it will be 
felt at the other. Take out a ring here and there ; nay, 
cut and slash the wire strands, and break the rings by the 
score, the circuit will still be unbroken. So it is with the 
Catholic Episcopate. Invalidate it here and there, if you 
can; the error will be rectified in a few years. "If you 
can," I say, but can you ? Try it and see. Put your fin- 
ger on one single Bishop of the Catholic Church — Ancient 
or Modern, Greek, Latin, or Anglican — and prove that his 
consecrators were nob Bishops, that his orders are nil; 
prove it, I say, or even throw a fair degree of suspicion on 
it, if you can, and then — what? Why, console yourself 
with the thought that you have done no harm ; and even 
could you have demolished an hundred Episcopal links, 
instead of [not even] one, the Apostolic Succession would 
still be intact ; just as surgeons sometimes apply a liga- 



AUTHORITY. 



Ill 



ture to the femoral artery, and then find that the almost 
unnoticed collateral circulation proves sufficient to nourish 
the limb in every part. In our Mother Church of Eng- 
land the Archbishops of Canterbury have been the chief 
Consecrators of Bishops for 1300 years. And yet (to make 
the wildest concession imaginable), suppose that every 
one of them — from St. Augustine to Dr. Benson — was an 
impostor, a mitred layman, the Anglican Succession would 
still be unimpaired, and Anglican orders as valid as be- 
fore. As a recent writer has said : " The first Canon of 
the most ancient body of Canons in the Christian Church 
— called the Apostolic Canons 1 — requires that a Bishop 
shall be consecrated by two or three Bishops, thus recog- 
nizing the collective idea from the start, and the larger of 
these numbers, three, has been the express requirement of 
all subsequent canonical legislation on the subject. 

It has always been maintained in the Anglican Church, 
and in every branch of it to this day, though not so strictly 
in the Roman branch, nor has any Anglican consecration 
ever taken place with less than three Bishops uniting in the 
act. This gives a threefold guarantee of validity to every 
Bishop consecrated. It is an open and public guarantee. 
As each of the three consecrators must himself have been 
consecrated by three others, the second step has a ninefold 
guarantee, and so on by geometrical progression. This is 

1. Another of these Apostolical Canons says: "Neither do we permit the 
laity to perform any of the offices belonging to the Priesthood ; as, for instance, 
neither the sacrifice, nor baptism, nor the laying on of hands, nor the blessing, 
whether the smaller or the greater, for l no one taketh this honor to himself, but 
lie that is called of God.' For such sacred offices are conferred by the laying on 
of the hands of the Bishop. But a person to whom such an office is not commit- 
ted, but he seizes upon it for himself, he shall undergo the punishment of 
Uzziah." 



112 REASONS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



somewhat reduced by the same Bishop acting in two or 
more consecrations. It is, on the other hand, increased by 
the fact that very often four or more Bishops join in a 
consecration, thus greatly multiplying the threads of con- 
nection with the past. Take, for instance, the case of the 
present Bishop of Albany. He was consecrated by five 
Bishops, and, tracing up the lines of their consecrators, it 
will be found that every Priest ordained by Bishop Doane 
combines in himself the transmission of the spiritual gift 
through no less than sixty-nine Bishops of the American 
Episcopate, including the whole of the four (one Scottish 
and three English) consecrations with which our American 
succession begins ; and besides these includes four Bishops 
of the English and Colonial Churches — Spencer, Medley, 
Fulford, and Staley — besides the three Scottish and six 
English with whom our succession began, or eighty-two 
Bishops in all. And this is in less than one century. 
The same rule, having prevailed in every part of the Cath- 
olic Church from the beginning, must everywhere have 
produced the same result. It is as sure and as simple as 
the multiplication table. It leaves no room for doubt. 

Take our American Church, for instance. Is it con- 
ceivable that a man should be received by all the clergy 
and laity of a diocese as a Bishop who had never been con- 
secrated ? And that, too, when the sole ground on which he 
could be received was that he had been consecrated ! Is it 
conceivable that a man would be received into the House 
ot Bishops, and sit and vote there unquestioned, while as 
yet he had never been consecrated ? And that, too, when the 
sole right to a seat rested on the fact that he had been 
consecrated, and those among whom he sat must have cer- 



AUTHORITY. 



113 



tainly known whether they had consecrated him or not ! 
And as these consecrations are things of public local noto- 
riety^ the stealing in of any unconsecrated man, and his 
universal recognition, both by the clergy and laity of 
a diocese, as well as by the House of Bishops, is a moral 
impossibility. The same is true of every Province and 
Provincial Synod in Christendom. 

The fact of consecration, therefore, is as certain as any 
human event can be. And in every such consecration 
there is the personal contact of the consecrators and the conse- 
crated, and each consecrator imparts to the consecrated 
that which he himself already possesses— a part in that One 
Episcopate of the Catholic Church, of which each validly 
consecrated Bishop has an undivided share. No one can 
say of such an act that the consecrators undertook to give 
what they had not got themselves. And the requirement of 
three or more consecrators in each consecration produces, 
not a single chain composed of single links, the failure of 
any one of which would break the line ; but it gives a 
multitudinous web of validity, so widespreading and com- 
prehensive that the loss of one thread here and there — 
even if it could be proved (as it can not) — would have no 
effect at all on the general result." 2 

The Apostolic Succession is thus vastly more certain 
than that of the Jewish High Priests, nor can any King 
in all the world be half so sure that he is the heir of his 
ancestors, as can the Bishops of the Church that they are 
the lawful inheritors of the office and commission of the 
Blessed Apostles. "The official lives of two Bishops of 
our own Church, Bishops White and Smith, extending 



2. Rev. J. H. Hopkins, D. D., in Am. Ch. Rev., Jan., 1885. 



114 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



over nearly a century, suggests that the chain of Episcopal 
Succession has not so many links as is often imagined, 
and (from such imagination) argued that it is quite in- 
credible that there should be no missing link in that chain. 
Thirty-six of such lives carry us back to the Apostolic 
age ; and when it is furthermore considered that the rule 
has always prevailed of requiring at least three Bishops to 
unite in the consecration of another, it will readily be 
seen that so far from there being a high degree of proba- 
bility against the continuance of a lineal succession in the 
Episcopate, there is scarcely the least ground for the 
opinion that it could have failed even if we had not ample 
documentary evidence to the contrary." 3 

Another argument is to be found in the homage which 
all early schismatics paid to Episcopacy ; for they re- 
sorted to desperate expedients in order to get the Apos- 
tolic Succession. For example, when the Roman Presby- 
ter, Novatianus, started his schism, about a. d. 250, he is 
said to have invited three country Bishops to his house, 
where he dined them, and wined them, and made them 
drunk, and then forced them to go through the sacriligious 
form of ordaining him a Bishop. And yet, like all schis- 
matics, his ostensible aim was to purify the Church ! In 
like manner, Fortunatus, who headed a schism in Carth- 
age, during the Episcopate of good St. Cyprian, got 
himself ordained by Privatus, an excommunicated Bishop, 
assisted by several of his kind, whom St. Cyprian calls 
"false bishops." A few early sects who were unable to 
get even the shadow of a succession, set up a man-made 

3. The Rt. "Rev. H. A. Neely, D. D., Bishop of Maine, Convention Acldress T 
1884. 



AUTHORITY. 



115 



ministry with imitation bishops, like the " Tulcan bishops," 
who for a while drew the Episcopal revenues of Scotland, 
or like the so-called " bishops " of the Danish Lutherans, 
and the Methodist Episcopalians. 

Another argument might be found in the occasional 
allusions to the polity of the Church, which are made by 
pagan writers, and by the early opponents of Christianity. 
Fas est ah hoste doceri. 

Or, take the two or three instances where a disappointed 
priest undertook to play the bishop. Early in the fourth 
century, Colluthus, a Presbyter at Alexandria, separated 
from his Bishop and undertook to ordain certain men to 
the priesthood. Whereupon a council of all the Bishops 
in Egypt was held in Alexandria, a. d. 324, by which the 
ordinations above mentioned were declared null and void, 
on the ground that Colluthus not being a Bishop, but only 
a Priest, had no power of ordaining. Those whom he had 
laid his hands on, pretending to make them Priests, were 
declared to be simply laymen, and, having been reconciled 
to the Church, lived thereafter in lay-communion. 4 

In the same century, Aerius, a Presbyter who was dis- 
appointed at not being made a Bishop, apostatized from 
the Faith, denied the Divinity of Christ, and, as St. Jer- 
ome says, " is reported to have added also some dogmas of 
his own [sic], saying that there ought to be no difference 
between a Presbyter and a Bishop." 5 He was well 
answered by Epiphanius, who called his novel theory " an 
outrageous and senseless doctrine " — dogma furiosum et 



4. See Athanasius' Works, Vol. I., pp. 134 and 193. 

5. '•'Propria quoque addisse dogmata nonnulla, dicens Presbyterum ab 
Episcopo nulla differentia debere discerni." 



116 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



stolidum. The Churchmen of his day regarded him as a 
" mad man." 

Finally, take the history of the Ancient Councils, espe- 
cially the Six General Councils, which brought together in 
all 1,630 Bishops from all parts of the Universal Church ; 
study them with care. It is all one way: There is no 
popery and no parity in any of them. 

Such is a part of the evidence of antiquity as to the 
divine order and polity of the Catholic Church. Well 
does Archbishop Potter say : " There is such a multitude 
of unexceptionable witnesses for this fact, as can scarce be 
produced for any other matter of fact, except the rise and 
progress of Christianity ; so that whoever shall deny this 
may with better reason reject all histories whatever." 
Apostolical Succession is a historical fact. AndMacaulay, 
who is often quoted against the doctrine, said : " What- 
ever may be the doctrine, there can be no question of the 
historical truth." And here I close the testimony of an- 
tiquity, lest it be said of me, as of another : Utetur in re 
non dvMa argumentis non necessariisf 



6. "In an affair which admits of no doubt, he uses superfluous arguments/ ' 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND THE " FELLOWSHIP OF THE 

APOSTLES." 

" O, mother of our sinful land, 
By kings and saints of yore 
Called to Brittania's savage strand 
From Syria's distant shore." 

—Lyra Apostolica, p. 173. 

IN assigning reasons why we Anglo-Saxons should be 
Anglo- Catholics instead of either iforaan-Catholics or 
an^-Catholics, I have shown that the primitive Church 
had certain definite marks which must be retained in 
essential continuity by any Church which would justly 
claim the allegiance of thoughtful and pious men. These 
marks, as laid down in the Bible and as apparent in the 
early Church, are Baptism, the Doctrine of the Apostles, 
the Fellowship of the Apostles, the Breaking of the Bread, 
and the Prayers — in other words, the New Birth, the 
Orthodox Faith, the Apostolic Ministry, the Eucharist, 
and the " Divine Liturgy " (as Early Christians used often 
to call the Church's most solemn prayers). 

Now, if the Anglican Church be a true and pure branch 
of the Catholic Church, it must be found to possess all 
these things, and if any of them have ever, even for a 



118 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



short time, been lost or impaired, they must have been 
lawfully restored. I cannot see that any one of these 
things was ever lacking in the Christianity of England, 
though at times some of them have been somewhat clogged 
in their use and operation. But I dwell at length on the 
Apostolic Fellowship, which inheres in the Catholic Epis- 
copate, because it, and it alone, has the power to remedy 
all defects ; or, as St. Paul said to the first Bishop of 
Crete, to " set in order the things which are wanting." 1 

No reader is asked to take for granted the conclusions 
to which this course of argument may ultimately lead ; 
but only to follow candidly and without prejudice the 
process of interrogating the Bible and history to find the 
essentials of Catholicity, and then to see whether the An- 

1. In this connection the eloquent words of the late Bishop of Ohio are cer- 
tainly apropos : ''Deprive the Chnrch of her ministry, and all her other agencies 
of good, except nnder a special Providence, must wither away; then zeal for the 
truth languishes and dies, because the constituted channel of its nourishment is 
cut off; agents and efforts of religious usefulness cease, because the voice of 
those whom God has ordained to summon and animate them to duty is not 
heard; * * * the Bible is not sought for, because the commissioned expoun- 
ders and enforcers of its truths are not ; Christianity, with all her lovely retinue 
of virtues and benefits, withdraws from the abodes of men, because her cause is 
not pleaded; her solemn feasts are not celebrated: her altars are not honored; 
he'r law is not published; her blessings are not proclaimed. Thus the day is 
turned into night, and the garden of the Lord into a wilderness and solitary 
place. Xothing, in such a condition, could bring back the sun and the rain and 
the dew— nothing restore Christianity, with * * * the Bible, the Sanctuary, 
the daily oblation, and all that is precious in heavenly grace, but the reinstate- 
ment of that ministry of reconciliation, by which, in the beginning of the Gospel, 
the world was so rapidly and wonderfully planted with its blessings. 

"If any ask, why such connection; it is enough at present to answer— 'So is 
the will of God.' 1 It might have been otherwise. But He who ordained that the 
earth should have no day but by the shining of the sun, hath alike ordained that 
the world shall have no spiritual light but by reflection from His Church, and His 
Church no power of reflection but by the agency of her ministry, to which is com- 
mitted the word of reconciliation, and which, like the mystic lamps of the Taber- 
nacle, He hath set up in the midst of the sanctuary."— The Kt. Rev. Dr. Mcll- 
vaine, The Christian Ministry, p. 15. 



I 

AUTHORITY. 119 



glican Church has retained thern. If we find that she 
has not, and that some other religious body has — be it the 
Tridentine Church or the Salvation Army — then let us 
yield gracefully, and say with the converted Epicurean : 

"Nunc retrorsum 
Vela dare atque iterare cursus, 
Cogor relictos." 

Thus far we have seen that the Anglican Church has 
always continued steadfastly in the primitive theory and 
practice of Holy Baptism, and in the Orthodox Catholic 
Faith. Has she also kept fellowship with the Apostles 
through the Apostolic ministry which Christ ordained? 
I answer : Our Mother Church, from her infancy among 
the Britons to this day, has never for one hour known 
what it is to be without her Catholic Episcopate. 

The actual date of the introduction of Christianity into 
Britain has no bearing on the authority of our Church. 
The oldest Church is that of Jerusalem, followed by the 
various dioceses and provinces of the East. The Church 
in Rome was for a long time only an Oriental mission, 
working among the Greeks and Jews of the Metropolis. 
It was in Greek that St. Paul wrote his letter to the Ro- 
man Christians, and Greek was for two centuries the 
official and liturgical language of the Church in Rome. 
No one dreamed of such a thing as that the struggling 
community of Christians in Rome was in any sense the 
Mother and Mistress of all Christendom. There is, more- 
over, strong ground for believing that Christianity was 
introduced into Britain as early, if not earlier than into 
Rome. Indeed, there is some evidence that the Church 
got a foothold in Britain five years before it was planted 



120 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



in Rome ; so that Rome, instead of being our Mother, 
would really be only a younger sister, and — more's the 
pity ! — not a very loving one at that. As Hore says (in 
his " Eighteen Centuries of the Church in England," p. 
191) : "It has been asserted that the foundation of the 
British Church was prior in date to that of the Roman : 
Cf. Crackenthorp, Def. Eccl. Angl., p. 23. ' De Brittannica 
Ecclesia nostra liquidum estfuisse illam aliquot ante Romanam 
annis fundatam. * * * Disce Romanam ecclesiam, Brit- 
annicx nostrse non matrem sed sororem, atque sororem ixtegro 

QUIXQUENXIO MIXOREM.' " 2 

Linus, whom St. Paul ordained as the first Bishop of 
Rome, was a Briton, and is with good reason believed to 
have been converted to Christianity in Britain before ever 
he came to Rome. His father, Caractacus, a petty British 
king, and his grandfather, Bran, a Druid, were carried to 
Rome, together with his sister, Claudia, 3 and lived in the 
imperial palace. St. Paul says (Phil., iv., 22): "All the 
saints salute you, chiefly those that are of Caesar's house- 
hold and again (II. Tim., iv., 21): u Eubulus greeteth 
thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia." For the 
whole story about these royal British Christians and their 
relation to St. Paul, see Hore's Eighteen Centuries, and 
Jenning's Ecclesia Anglicana. 

The evidence that St. Paul, after his journey into Spain 
(See Rom., xv., 24 and 28), made a brief visit to Britain, 

2. As to our British Church, it is clear that it was founded some years be- 
fore the Roman. * * * Learn, then, that the Roman Church is not the Mother 
of our British Church, but the sister, and that, too, a sister fully five years 
younger. 

3. Clement, the third Bishop of Rome, speaks of "most holy Linus, the 
brother of Claudia.'" 



AUTHORITY. 



121 



although not regarded conclusive by some scholars, is 
pretty strong, and at least proves the great antiquity of 
the British Church. 

Gildas, the first Briton whose writings are extant (sixth 
century) says that Christianity dawned on Britain as early 
as a. d. 61. 

Fortunatus, a poet of the sixth century, says St. Paul 
" passed over the ocean to Britain." Theodoret (b. 386, 
Bishop of Cyprus 410) says that a St. Paul, at the time of 
his journey into Spain, brought salvation to the islands 
lying in the ocean ; " that he went to Spain, and thence 
carried the Gospel to other nations ; and he expressly 
states that some of the Apostles preached to the Britons. 
He says : u Our fishermen and publicans, and he who was 
a tent-maker, carried the evangelical precepts to all nations j 
not only to those who lived under the Roman jurisdiction,, 
but also to the Scythians and the Huns ; besides to the 
Indians, Britons, and Germans." 

St. Jerome (b. about 340) says that St. Paul went from 
one ocean to another, that he preached the Gospel in the 
western parts, as far as the earth itself. Britain was regarded 
as the extremity of the western world. 

Eusebius (b. about 290) says that some of the Apostles 
crossed the ocean to those islands which are called British. 

Origen, who flourished a. d. 197, says : " The power of 
the Saviour reached as far as Britain." 

Tertullian (b. about 135) says : u There are places in 
Britain inaccessible to Roman arms, which are subdued to 
Christ." 

Justin Martyr (b. about 100) says that Christianity 
existed in every country known to the Romans. 



122 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



And St. Clement, the third Bishop of Rome, the " fellow- 
laborer " of St. Paul, says that St. Paul preached the Gos- 
pel to " the utmost bounds of the west" 

"There can be," says Hore, "no reasonable ground for 
doubting that the British Church was not only of very 
ancient, but also of Apostolic foundation. A Roman 
Catholic writer, not generally very favorable to the Angli- 
can Church, whose testimony on that account is the more 
valuable, readily admits this : 4 It is probable,' he says, 
4 that Christianity was disseminated over parts of England 
during the Apostolic age. This ivas universally believed by 
our ancestors, * * * The documents on which the his- 
tory of the first conversion of England depends, approach 
much nearer than those of the ancient Romans to historical 
certitude.'" 4 

The old legends about St. James and Joseph of Arima- 
thea going to Glastonbury, cannot be looked upon as his- 
torical, but are valuable as showing the general belief that 
Christianity was on British soil in the first century ; and 
there is good reason to believe that the church in Glaston- 
bury was the first building ever erected for Christian wor- 
ship. 

While much obscurity hangs over the early history of 
our Church in Britain, there can be no doubt that it was 
very ancient, that it was independent of foreign control, that 
it received help from Gaul in the second century; and as 
Gaul received its Christianity from Ephesus and not from 
Italy, the British Church was very Oriental in its ways, 
and on that account had, and has to this day, several 



4. Butler's Book of the Church, quoted in Hore's Eighteen Centuries, 
pp. 8-9. 



AUTHORITY. 



123 



points of difference from the Western Churches which 
were more intimately associated with Italy. 

If, as we are whirled across the country, we look out of 
the car window every few minutes, and each time see the 
landscape covered thick with snow, we feel sure that the 
snow has fallen all along the line. So, from the few 
glimpses that we get of the early British Church, we see 
that it was Episcopal, and are sure that in the brief inter- 
Tals between these glimpses, the Apostolic Ministry ever 
spread the white vestments of its divine and gracious 
office over the rugged surface of that ancient Church. 

After the Diocletian persecution, a. d. 303, in which our 
Proto-martyr, St. Alban, suffered for the truth, many 
Roman soldiers stationed in Britain, became interested 
in Christianity, and at least learned to respect it — -among 
whom was the Military Governor, Constantius, the father 
of the Emperor Constantine. Constantine, thanks to his 
residence in Britain, was favorable to the religion of 
Christ, and became the first Christian Emperor. In the 
year 314 he summoned a Council of Bishops at Aries, and 
among those who were present and signed the decrees of 
the Council, were three Bishops from our own Church, 
accompanied by a Priest and a Deacon. They were Res- 
titutus, Bishop of London, Eborius, Bishop of York, and Adel- 
phius, who was Bishop probably of Caerleon on Usk (the 
modern St. Davids, of which, at this writing, the Right 
Rev. Dr. Jones is Bishop). 

It is uncertain, but, on the whole, highly probable that 
British Bishops were present at the General Council of 
Nicsea, a. d. 325. At all events, they were invited, and 
they accepted the doctrinal decrees of the Council. Bish- 



124 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



op Restitutus and probably some other Bishops attended 
the Council of Sardica, a. d. 347. And at the unfortunate 
Council of Rimine, a number of British Bishops were 
present, and so independent were they that, as is recorded 
by Sulpicius Severus, they thought it unbecoming that 
Britons should accept the generous offer of the Emperor to 
defray their expenses from the public treasury, with the 
exception of three who were in straitened circumstances. 
"Britannis indecens visum- est; repudiatis ftscalibus, propriis 
sumptions vivere voluerunt" 5 

Thus our Mother Church, with the Sacrament of Holy 
Baptism, with the Orthodox Faith, with the Apostolic 
Ministry of Bishops, 6 Priests, and Deacons — and of course 
also with the Holy Eucharist and a truly Catholic Liturgy 
— flourished until, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the 
Pagan Saxons invaded the Island and drove the native 
Christians from the Eastern parts to the hill country of 
the West, chiefly Wales and Cornwall. Theon, the Bishop 
of London, and Thadioc, the Bishop of York, held their 
Sees manfully till a. d. 587; and then, when their flocks 
were scattered and a host of heathen wolves were in the 
fold, " when London sacrificed to Diana, and Westminster 
to Apollo," they also fled and followed their brethren to 
Wales, where their Church still lives. 



5. "To Britons it seemed unbecoming [to have their expenses paid], so r 
declining the public bounty, they preferred to live at their own expense." 

6. See Haddan and Stubb's " Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents " (VoL 
I., pp. 3-21). 



CHAPTER XV. 



ANGLO-CATHOLICISM ; OR, THE MAKING AND ESTABLISHING 
OF THE PRESENT NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

"It is of paramount importance to remember the organic identity of the 
Church of England before and after the Reformation."— Bishop Forbes. 



*ROM the year 587, when the Archbishops of London 



JL and York fled to Wales, to the year 597, when Augus- 
tine, the Apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, first set foot in Can- 
terbury, Christianity was almost totally extinct in England 
proper. In Wales, Cumberland, and Cornwall, however, 
our dear old Church was still strong, and numbered more 
Ibishops and clergy than she does to-day in those same 
parts. Moreover, her daughter, 1 the Church of Ireland, 
and her grand-daughter, 2 the Church of Scotland, were in 

1. Ireland was converted mainly by St. Patrick, a native of North Britain, 
the son of a clergyman, ordained by French Bishops, A. D. 441. He fixed his See 
at Armagh, which is to this day the Primal See of the Irish Church. He also 
ordained the first Bishop of the Isle of Man. He was on intimate terms with the 
Bishop of Eome; but was as free from all Romish error as his successor, the 
present Archbishop of Armagh. The Bishop of Rome found it harder to usurp 
dominion over the Irish Church than any other in Western Europe, and was not 
even allowed to confer the " pall " on any Irish Archbishop till A. D. 1151. 

2. Scotland was mainly converted by an Irish missionary, St. Columba, in A. 
T>. 565, though British missionaries had preached the Gospel in the South of Scot- 
land more than a century before, especially St. "Ninian, who also aided in evan- 
gelizing Ireland. " The first legate (from Rome) that ever appeared in Scotland 
was John of Crema, in the year 1125, before which time there is no trace to be 
met with of any Papal authority in this country." — C. I. Lyon, quoted in Coit's 
"Early Hist. Christianity in Eng.,' 1 p. 157. 




126 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



full and loving communion with their British Mother. 
These three Churches of the Celtic race, Catholic, inde- 
pendent, 3 full of missionary spirit, knew nothing even of 
that mild form of Latin tyranny and Roman centralization 
which were then to be found in Western Europe. As the 
learned jurist, Blackstone, puts it : " The British Church, 
by whomsoever planted, was a stranger to the Bishop of 
Rome, and all his pretended authority.'' (Com. iv., 8.) 

Ethelbert, King of Kent, the foremost of the Saxon 
Kings, had married a Christian princess, Bertha, a daughter 
of the King of Paris. She brought with her a Gallic bishop 
(Luidhard, the Bishop of Senlis) and staff of clergy who 
maintained Christian worship in an old British church for 
some twenty-five years before the arrival of Augustine. 
She was thus the first missionary to the Saxons, and but 
for her, Augustine's mission would have been of very- 
doubtful success. Gregory himself, the Bishop of Rome., 
who sent Augustine to England, said that "next to God, 
England was indebted to her for its conversion." The Ven- 
erable Bede declares that the Saxon King had heard of 
Christianity from his wife before the coming of Augus- 
tine ; and William of Malmsbury testifies that the exem- 
plary life of Bisho]3 Luidhard, the Queen's chaplain, had 
silently allured the King's heart to the knowledge of 
Christ. 

I have no wish to disparage the good work done by 
Augustine or any other Italian missionaries in converting 
the Anglo-Saxons to the religion of Christ. But observe : 

In the first place, had they done all the work, it would 



3. Dr. Lingard (Romanist) says of the Britons: "The independence of 
their Church was the chief object of their solicitude." 



AUTHORITY. 127 

not have made the English Church a part of the Italian 
Church, much less have committed it in advance to doc- 
trines and practices which were then undreamed of even 
in Rome itself. The distinctive Romish errors were then 
unknown. Mariolatry was not yet in its infancy ; no one 
believed in the " Immaculate Conception" or had ever 
heard of it ; the Sacrament of the Altar was administered 
in both kinds ; Transubstantiation was not taught ; and 
although political considerations made the Bishop of Rome 
very powerful and much respected, yet so far from his hav- 
ing any supremacy, there was at that time far more danger 
that a sort of " papacy " or universal supremacy would be 
attached to the Bishops of Constantinople, one of whom, 
the Patriarch John, had just then assumed the title of 
Universal Bishop, which is still retained by his successors. 
Gregory, however, the Bishop of Rome, begged the other 
Patriarchs (viz., the Bishops of Alexandria, Antioch and 
Jerusalem) not to allow such a title to the Patriarch of 
Constantinople ; nor would he allow himself to be called 
by such a " proud, superstitious, profane and blasphemous 
name " u contrary to the Gospel and the Canons" "Who- 
ever," says he, " calls himself a Universal priest, or desires 
to be so called is the forerunner of Anti- Christ." The Patri- 
arch of Alexandria replied that he had given up calling 
John by that title, "as you have commanded me" (sicut 
jussistis), and in his letter he addressed Gregory himself as 
" Universal Pope ; " whereupon, with true Catholic humil- 
ity, Gregory wrote again : " I beg that you will not speak 
of my commanding, since I know who I am and who you 
are. In dignity you are my brother, in character my father. 
* * * I pray your most sweet holiness to address me 



123 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



no more with the proud appellation of ' Universal Pope,' 
since that which is given to another beyond what reason 
requires, is subtracted from yourself. If you style me 
Universal Pope, you deny that you are at all that which 
you own me to be universally. 4 Away with words which 
puff up vanity and wound charity." In his letter to John 
he declares Christ to be the " Head of the Universal 
Church/' 

How absurd, therefore, is the idea that Gregory and 
Augustine sought to commit the Saxons to anything re- 
sembling Modern Romanism. When Augustine tried to 
bring the British Bishops — seven of whom he met under 
the " Oak " of Herefordshire — to acknowledge the Bishop 
of Rome, it was not as being " the Pope " in the modern 
sense of that perverted title (which was common to all 
Bishops for 850 years), 5 but as having a certain primacy 
of honor, or at the most only a metropolitical jurisdiction 
which Augustine wished to extend as far as possible. In- 
deed, as late as 1100, Pascal II. claimed to be Head of the 
Church only within the bounds of Europe. 

Gregory, however, was a strange compound ; as one has 
said, "He was the last of Rome's good Bishops, and the 
first of its bad ones." While he disclaimed any right to 
supremacy, he nevertheless did much to build up the 
Roman power in Spain and Gaul ; and also, in direct vio- 
lation of the Canons of the General Councils which he had 

4. The Bishop of Alexandria was then and is to this day officially styled, 
" The Pope and Patriarch of the Great City of Alexandria," etc. Pope (Latin 
Papa) means only Father, and corresponds exactly to our Episcopal title, 
"Father in God." 

5. Indeed, it was as late as A. D. 1070, that Hildebrand, the Bishop of Rome, 
decreed that he alone should be called Pope, See Coit's Earl. Hist, Christianity 
in Eng., p. 170, note. 



AUTHORITY. 



129 



sworn to maintain, he presumed to give Augustine author- 
ity over the British Bishops. They, of course, repelled 
his interference with courteous dignity and catholic au- 
thority. 

Augustine was ordained Bishop by Aetherius, the Bish- 
op of Lyons (who derived his orders through Pothinus 
from St. John) and by Virgilius, the Bishop of Aries 
(who derived his through Trophinus from St. Paul), and 
was constituted Archbishop of Canterbury. Gregory con- 
ferred on him the pall, a white woolen scarf with purple 
crosses, which was at that time only a mark of favor, con- 
ferred with the consent of the Emperor, and not, as it 
afterwards became, a badge of submission to Rome. 

But whatever were the claims, admissible and inadmis- 
sible, which Gregory might have made to a primacy over 
the Christianity of the British Isles, provided he had been 
the author of it, we must remember that only a small part 
of the work of planting Christianity there was done by 
the Italian Church. Wales, Cornwall, and Cumberland, 
with many Bishops and thousands of clergymen, were not 
indebted to Rome ; Ireland and Scotland were converted 
by Celtic missionaries, and so was the larger part of England 
proper; I mean the Anglo-Saxons. All that Augustine 
and other Italian missionaries did was to sow the seed in 
Kent, which was already prepared for it by Queen Bertha 
and Bishop Luidhard (and even in this a large share of 
the work was done by the Gallic missionaries who accom- 
panied Augustine as interpreters), and in Wessex, and indi- 
rectly also in East Anglia. All the rest of England was 
converted by Celtic missionaries, indirectly from Wales, 
and directly from Ireland and Scotland, with a little help 
from France. 



130 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



One gift, however, the Roman missionaries gave to Eng- 
land, and that was the genius of thorough organization, 
centering in the See of Canterbury. Augustine was con- 
secrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 597. After him 
came five Archbishops who ruled only a part of the Saxon 
Christians, as the larger portion of them were of the Celtic 
obedience. 

Meantime, the two schools of Christians in the Hep- 
tarchy were being drawn nearer together, and at length 
agreed to unite under one Archbishop. Accordingly they 
received Theodore, a Greek, born in the city of Tarsus, the 
birthplace of St. Paul. Under him the English Church 
was welded into one compact organism, long before Eng- 
land was a nation, or had any central government. 

Theodore, as being a member of the Greek Church, was 
acceptable to the British party, who prided themselves on 
their Oriental Origin ; and as having been ordained by 
the Bishop of Rome, was acceptable to the Italian party. 
The magnitude and beneficence of his work cannot be too 
highly appreciated. He held the first general Synod of 
the Saxon 6 Church at Hertford, a. d. 673 ; he subdivided 
dioceses ; he was instrumental in introducing the Greek 
parochial system with resident clergy in each parish ; he 
introduced ten very important canons of Ancient Coun- 
cils, which he had brought with him from the East ; he 
arranged to a large extent the financial system of the Eng- 
lish Church ; in fact, he established a united Church in 
England, pure, Catholic, independent — the same which 
God has preserved through all the vicissitudes of the ages 



6. Before, the Saxon invasion there had been at least twelve such Synods, 
under the British Archbishops of London, of whom there were fifteen. 



AUTHORITY. 



131 



to this day ; a Church which was never established by the 
State, or by any act of Parliament, for it antedates the State 
itself by a hundred and fifty years ; 7 and can more properly 
be said to have established the State, than to have been estab- 
lished by the State. Archdeacon Churton has said of Theo- 
dore : " He found the Church divided, and left it united ; 
he found it a missionary Church scarcely fixed in more 
than two principal provinces ; he left it what it will ever 
be, while the country remains in happiness and freedom, 
the Established Church of England." 

In 874, the Welsh Church acknowledged the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, and by the year 1200 had become fully 
united with the English Church, bringing in the line of 
Apostolic Succession of the old British Bishops, and those 
of Gaul, and of Jerusalem, the See of St. James, which 
the second General Council called "The Mother of All 
Churches." 



7. " The unity of the Church in England was the pattern of the unity of the 
state ; the cohesion of the Church was for ages the substitute for the cohesion 
which the divided nation was otherwise unable to realize. * * * It was to an 
extraordinary degree a national Church; national in its comprehensiveness as 
well as in its exclusiveness. Englishmen were m their lay aspects Mercians or 
West Saxons; only in their ecclesiastical relations could they feel themselves 
fellow-countrymen and fellow-subjects."— Stubb's Constitutional History, Vol. 
I., Chap, viii., "The Anglo-Saxon Church." 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH NEVER THE ROMAN CHURCH. 

•■ The only logical basis of Anglicanism is the maintenance of the Identity," 
—Bishop Forbes. 

JT is a great mistake to suppose that, before the Refor- 
i rnation, the Church in England was the Roman Church, 
and after the Reformation the English Church. It was 
always the same English Church from the time England 
received Christianity, and long before the English were a 
nation. Its legal name was the English Church — Ecdeda 
Anglicana — and neither its name nor its organization, nor 
the essentials of its faith and worship, have ever been 
changed. In the reign of King Alfred, the Church of Eng- 
land leased a piece of property to the Crown for 999 years. 
A few years ago the term of the lease expired, and the 
property reverted to the present Church of England as 
being the identical corporation which leased the land a 
millennium before. 

But all this is not to deny that during the Middle Ages, 
the English Church became corrupt in many ways ; and 
by a series of successful encroachments on the part of 
the Bishop of Rome, backed by the " Forged Decretals," 
by the superstition of the times, and by the vices of some 



AUTHORITY. 



133 



of the kings, was gradually brought, to a considerable 1 
extent, under the yoke of Italy. Thus a reformation be- 
came necessary in order to free and purify the English 
Church. Let me illustrate : 

Napoleon the Great extended his imperial usurpation 
over the kingdom of Prussia ; but Prussia was still Prus- 
sia, and retained her own government and royal succes- 
sion. By and by Prussia freed herself from Napoleon's 
tyranny. Did that make her a new na/tion? Was she 
not the same old kingdom that she was before ? Or, to 
bring the matter nearer home, here in North America are 
two sister Churches, the Church in the United States, and 

1. Says the Rev. Wm. A. Rich, in "The Examination Examined:" "In 
England, -from before King John' — say, from the Norman Conquest— 'to the 
Reformation,' papal encroachments by degrees reached the point where they be- 
came intolerable. But never at any time did the papal sway in Britain attain 
such proportions that we can rightly speak of it as absolute. 

Plainly it was not absolute when the Norman William laid down the law that 
no papal legate should set foot on English soil without the royal permission.^ 

Nor when his son William Rufus (as the ancient chronicler, Matthew Paris, 
relates) declared that no Bishop or Archbishop of the English Church was sub- 
ject to the Pope.§ 

Nor when the statute De Asportatis Rdligiosorum (35 Edw. I,) was enacted, 
forbidding that the revenues of monasteries and other religious houses, held by 
papal ecclesiastics, should be carried out of the kingdom. |] 

Nor when by the statutes of Provisors (25 and 38 Edw. III., 13 Kich. II., and 
2 Henry IV.) it was ordered that any English ecclesiastic obtaining from the 
Pope a nomination to any benefice, abbey, or priory in the realm of England, 
shall be outlawed. 'And any man may do with him as with an enemy of our 
Sovereign Lord the King and his realm. '^f 

Nor when the celebrated statutes of Praemunire were enacted (27 Edw. III., 
and 16 Rich. II.), restraining ail British subjects from appealing to the Papal 
authority or attempting to act under it.** 

Nor when the Parliament of 1399 declared that "in all time past the crown 
and realm of England had been so free that neither Pope nor any other outside 
the realm had a right to meddle therewith. "ft 

% Stubbs' Constitutional History, I., p. 310. 

§ Quoted in Wordsworth's "Theoph. ADg.,'' p. 162. 

|| Gibson's Codex, p. 1222. T Gibson's Codex, pp. 74, 81, 83 and 87. 

** Gibson's Codex, pp. 80, 86. ft Stubbs, iii., k 293. 



134 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



the Church in Canada. Suppose our hi Presiding Bishop " 
should, b}^ a system of shrewd and unscrupulous aggres- 
sion — such as bribing the Governors of Canada, and circu- 
lating skillfully forged documents which deceived many 
of the Canadians into believing that our Presiding Bishop 
really had an ancient and divine right to the obedience of 
all Canadians — usurp dominion over the Canadian Church. 
Suppose the Canadian Church was thus forced, against 
her own interests and honor, to submit to this foreign 
interference, but all the w r hile kept up a protest, maintained 
her old name, and her own prayer book, and her own succes- 
sion of bishops, and her own diocesan and Provincial 
Synods, would she really cease to be the same old Church 
of Canada ? And if after a time she should find out that 
she had been originally independent, and so should simply 
decide that the great American Bishop had no just au- 
thority over her, and should find herself strong enough to 
resist his interference, would that make her a new or dif- 
ferent Church ? Would it sever her historic continuity ? 
Would it break her fellowship with the Apostles ? Not 
at all. Now, this was precisely the case of our own 
Church, as she was gradually brought under the dominion 
of the Bishop of Rome — struggling manfully the while 
against his usurpation, and at last throwing it off. Surely 
there was no making of a new Church. If a man is en- 
slaved and escapes from bondage, he is the same man ; if 
he is taken sick and recovers, he is the sarnie person ; if a 
chariot gets covered with mud, and is washed, it is the 
same chariot. 

In the Arabian tale, " Sinbad the Sailor," after his fifth 
voyage, was living on an island, when a monster, called 



AUTHORITY. 



135 



-the " Old Man of the Sea/' dropped down upon his 
shoulders, and rode poor Sinbad almost to death. By 
and by Sinbad made the Old Man drunk with wine, and, 
throwing him off, was free again. Sinbad the Sailor was 
Sinbad the Sailor before the Old Man of the Sea mounted 
him ; he was Sinbad the Sailor while the Old Man of the 
Sea was on his back ; and he was the same Sinbad the 
Sailor after he had cast him off. Our Church, in like man- 
ner, was on an Island. The Old Man of the Papal See [for- 
give the paronomasia'] jumped upon our Church and rode 
it like a beast of burden. Like Sinbad, we threw him off ; 
we bathed and refreshed ourselves ; but (thank God) we 
remained the same old Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
without losing our Orthodox Faith, our Apostolic Succes- 
sion and Fellowship, our historic continuity, our lawful 
Sacraments and Worship, or our divine jurisdiction and 
authority. 

Until the Norman Conquest (a. d. 1066), the Bishop of 
Eome had very little authority over the English Church. 
In the seventh century, Wilfrid, the Archbishop of York, 
was the first English Churchman to appeal to Rome. The 
Roman Bishop sustained him, and pronounced eternal 
anathemas on all who should refuse to abide by his decis- 
ion. But he was dealing with Englishmen, not with the 
effeminate races of Southern Europe. The King of Wes- 
sex convened a synod which ruled that Wilfrid's appeal to 
Rome was a public offense, and cast him into prison. At 
the same time, the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to 
notice a summons from the Bishop of Rome to attend a 
council. 

After Wilfrid had been set at liberty, and allowed to 



136 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



return to his diocese, through the kindly mediation of the 
Bishop of London, he again appealed to Rome on the same 
question — the division of his diocese. For this second 
offense against the authority of the English Church he 
was deposed and excommunicated, and the sentence of 
the Bishop of Rome was set at naught. 

When St. Cuthbert was Archbishop of Canterbury, his 
friend Winfrid ("St. Boniface an Englishman who had 
converted a large part of German}?, advised him to bring 
the English Church under the authority of Rome, as he 
claimed he had done with the Church in Germany. 

In the first place, this proves that the Church was not 
already in submission to Rome ; and, in the second place, 
when St. Cuthbert — pleased with the idea — called a coun- 
cil of the English Church, at Clovesho, a. d. 747, and pro- 
posed, as an entering wedge, that difficult cases in the 
English ecclesiastical courts should be referred to Rome, 
44 the Council refused to compromise the dignity of the 
Church, and the Archbishop was declared the Supreme 
head.'' 

In the eighth century, when the great controversy about 
u image worship " was agitating the whole Church, the 
Bishop of Rome declared in favor of the semi- idolatry ; but 
the English, so far from owning his supremacy, stood out 
boldly against his decree, and, in company with the Galil- 
ean Church, sided with the Greeks. 

The Bishop of Rome, of course, as being the foremost 
Prelate and the only Patriarch in the West, was justly re- 
spected for his office, and accorded a primacy of honor. 
But Roman ambition was leading to the gradual submis- 
sion and subjugation of the leading provinces and dioceses 



AUTHORITY. 



187 



of Europe ; and during the unhappy reign of Ofia — the 
most powerful of the Saxon Kings — the Bishop of Rome, 
like the camel in the fable, got his front feet within the 
door of the English Church. OfFa was a very cruel and 
licentious king, and being at variance with the Arch- 
bishop, he determined to elevate the diocese of Lichfield 
into an archbishopric in his own kingdom. Accordingly, 
by offering the Bishop of Rome a vast bribe, which he was 
base enough to accept, he succeeded in getting the "pall'* 
for the Bishop of Lichfield (which, however, remained an 
archdiocese for only fifteen years). In bestowing the pall, 
the Bishop of Rome made the first notable aggression on 
the liberties of the English Church. He insisted that 
Ofia should receive two Roman legates, and allow them, in 
spite of the protest of the Primate, to hold a council in 
England. It was a small thing in itself, but a bad prece- 
dent 

The second aggression was brought about in this way : 
Ofia, toward the end of his life, to atone, forsooth, for his 
grievous crimes, established a tax of one penny a year on 
every family in his kingdom, to be sent to Rome. This 
was the beginning of " Peter's Pence " (a. d. 855). 

The part played by that wicked King Henry VIII. in 
freeing the Church of England from Roman tyranny, is 
thus well offset by the fact that an equally wicked king 
was the means of opening the way for that tyranny seven 
hundred years before. 

Meantime, the " False Decretals/' which were forged 
about a. d. 836, claiming that Christ had constituted 
Rome the Head of the Church, etc., were doing their pes- 
tilent work throughout Europe, and opening the way for 



138 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



further encroachments on the divine liberties of the 
Anglo-Catholic Church. 

All scholars, Roman and Protestant, now admit that 
these decretals were only a " clumsy forgery." Doctor 
Fulton, in a thoughtful and suggestive note, says of them : 
" They might well be called the most prodigious disgrace 
of Christian literature, of which a history, and a complete 
translation, would be the most crushing reply to the mod- 
ern Papal pretensions/' 2 

Just before the Norman Conquest, two men, Robert and 
Stigand, claimed the Archbishopric of Canterbury. Rob- 
ert, like Wilfrid four hundred years before, appealed to 
Rome, being the second English Bishop to do so. The 
Bishop of Rome sustained him, but the English Church 
scorned the foreign prelate's interference, and Stigand re- 
mained Archbishop. 

It is not strange that the Bishop of Rome favored Wil- 
liam of Normandy in his conquest of England, for it 
seemed sure to bring the English Church under Roman 
dominion. Stigand and many of the Saxon bishops were 
removed by William and Normans put in their places. 
Lanfranc was made Archbishop of Canterbury ; and was, 
by the way, the first English bishop to teach the doctrine 
of Transubstantiation. Both William and Lanfranc, how- 
ever, resisted Rome in many ways. William was the 
only king in Europe who dared stand out against Gregory 
VII., the most powerful of all Roman bishops. He re- 
fused to do fealty for his kingdom ; and he allowed the 
payment of " Peter's Pence " only as a voluntary alms, not 



2. Am. Ch. Review, Jan., 1885, p. 293. 



AUTHORITY. 



139 



as a right. When Gregory summoned all the English 
bishops to a Council, and threatened William with the 
"Wrath of St. Peter 5 ' jnless they came, not a single 
bishop obeyed the summons. When he declared all the 
■married clergy of the English Church excommunicated, 
unless they put away their wives, the English Church 
held a Council, a. d. 1076, and refused to allow the new 
regulation except in the case of the cathedral and collegi- 
ate clergy, who were required to put away their wives. 3 
When the Bishop of Rome summoned Archbishop Lan- 
franc to Italy, on the penalty of deposition and u severance 
from the grace of St. Peter," if he did not arrive within 
four months, Lanfranc took no notice of the threat, and 
nothing was done. Rome's power, though still increasing, 
was far from complete. Urban II., the Bishop of Rome, 
a. d. 1100, declared that the Archbishop of Canterbury 
ought to be treated as an equal, and called him " the Pope 
and Patriarch of another world." 

The Council of Clarendon, a. d. 1164, forbade all appeals 
to Rome without the King's consent. Surely every one is 
familiar with the bold anti-Roman stand taken by Rich, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1234 ; by Grostete, the 
Bishop of Lincoln, 1235 ; and by Sewell, the Archbishop 
of York, 1265, against whom Rome fulminated a vain and 
unheeded excommunication. 

Italian aggression reached its climax in the reign of 
King John (1199-1216), when John placed the whole 

3. English clergy (except the monastic orders) were generally married up 
to A. D. 1102. After that, though prohibited by law, it was still common, pro- 
vided they paid a special tax to the king. They were never required to take a 
vow of celibacy. See Hore's Eighteen Centuries, p. 136; and Jenning's Eccl. 
.Ang., pp. 76-7. The civil law forbidding the marriage of the clergy was not re- 
pealed till long after the Reformation, in the reign of James I. 



140 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



realm at the feet of the Bishop of Rome, which, of course^ 
he had no right to do. The whole country rose against 
him, clergy, barons, people, calling themselves " The Army 
of God and the Church." "It was," says Hore, "the 
army not only of the barons against the King, but of the 
Church against the Pope." On that memorable 15th of 
June, 1215, they forced the King to sign Magna Charta, 
which was the work of Stephen Langdon, the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, and the first article of which declares: 
" The Church of England shall be free, and have her 
rights entire and her liberties uninjured." 4 The Bishop 
of Rome was, of course, in a fury. He swore : "By St. 
Peter, this outrage shall not go unpunished;" declared 
the charter null and void ; and commanded the Arch- 
bishop to excommunicate the barons — which, however, 
the patriotic Churchman refused to do. The Roman 
usurper had stretched his power too far ; it snapped ; the 
charter remained ; the Archbishop required the new King,. 
Henry III., to sign it; it has since been ratified thirty- 
two times, and, despite its Roman nullification, has ever 
since been a part of the fundamental law of England. 
Two reforms were now necessary: 

(a) To free the English State from the Roman claim of 
sovereignty; and 

(b) To free the English Church from the Roman claim 
of supremacy. 

The freeing of the State was accomplished in 1365, when 
the king, clergy, lords, and commons declared that John 
had no right to make England a fief of Rome, and forbade 
the payment of Peter's pence. 



4. "Inprimis * * * quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit, et habeat jura 
sua integra, et libertates suas illaesas." 



AUTHORITY. 



141 



The freeing of the English Church was a long and hard 
process. Various laws had from time to time been enacted 
against the Roman usurpation; and in 1351, the " Statute 
of Provisors " (followed by the statutes of " Praemunire/' 
in 1353, 1365, and 1393), left scarce a vestige of the Roman 
Bishop's power in our Church. The legal freeing of our 
Church by these famous statutes of the fourteenth century 
is not sufficiently appreciated. By them the Bishop of 
Rome was forbidden to appoint to any bishopric or other 
Church dignity in England. If he did so, the benefice 
was declared vacant, and the right of nomination lapsed 
to the king. These statutes also prohibited carrying any 
suits to the Roman court ; and forbade, under penalty of 
confiscation of property and perpetual imprisonment, any 
one to procure from Rome, or elsewhere outside of Eng- 
land, any appointments, bulls, excommunications, or the 
like. 

Thus, in theory, the Roman yoke was cast off, but practi- 
cally two things were needed in order to carry out the 
theory : First, the removal of the popular superstition that, 
after all, the Bishop of Rome had a sort of divine right 
over all churches ; and, secondly, a king bold enough and 
strong enough to break with the Triple Tyrant, and say : 

"That no Italian priest shall tithe or toll in our dominions." 

As to the first, the illusion was dispelled, the prestige of 
Rome broken, by the vices and quarrels of the Bishops of 
Rome ; by the removal of the Roman Court to Avignon, 
where for seventy years the Bishops of Rome were mere 
puppets of the French kings ; and by the fifty years of 
" rival popes," cursing and excommunicating each other. 
The Council of Pisa (1409) deposed and excommunicated 



142 



REASONS FOR BEIJSG A CHURCHJ1AN. 



both of them, and elected a third bishop of Rome. The 
Council of Constance (1415) deposed the wicked John 
XXII., and the Council of Basle (1431) deposed Eugenius 
IV. These " Reforming Councils," as they are called, 
asserted the superiority of a Council to the Bishop of 
Rome. For a while it looked as if the whole Western ■ 
Church might be reformed on Anglican principles. All 
Europe clamored for a reformation. Over 250 books were 
written by Western Ecclesiastics pleading for the correction 
of Roman abuses. 

The fall of Constantinople (1453) sent a host of learned 
Greek Churchmen to the West, and opened the eyes of 
English Churchmen to the fact that the Greek Church got 
on well enough, as it had from the beginning, without sub- 
mitting to the Roman Pontiff ; while the revival of Greek 
learning opened patristic treasures long forgotten, and the 
increased study of Holy Scripture was bearing fruit in a 
widespread longing for light and liberty. 

It was only needed that a bold king should take the first 
step. 5 In the providence of God Who maketh even the 
wrath of man to praise Him, Henry VIII. was the man 
for the hour. 

As to Henry's character, we need not trouble ourselves. 
It was about as bad as it could be, while his confiscations 
of our Church property make him the greatest Church- 

5. "If any man will look down along the line of early English history, he 
will see a standing contest between the rulers of this land and the Bishops of 
Rome. The Crown and Church of England, with a steady opposition, re- 
sisted the entrance and encroachment of the secularized ecclesiastical power 
of the Pope in England. The last rejection of it was no more than a successful 
effort after many a failure in struggles of the like kind."— Manning " On the 
Unity of the Church." 



AUTHORITY. 



143 



robber that ever lived. God, however, used hirn like Cyrus 
of old. 

After the King's quarrel with the Bishop of Rome, Parlia- 
ment and Convocation passed stringent laws against Roman 
interference. The experimentum cruris was made, the " Gor- 
dian Knot " was cut in June, 1534, when the following res- 
olution was submitted to the bishops of both provinces in 
Convocation assembled : "Resolved that the Bishop of Rome 
has no greater jurisdiction conferred on him by God, in this king- 
dom, than any other foreign bishop." 6 

All the bishops, with the single exception of Fisher, 
Bishop of Rochester, assented to the proposition ; the 
clergy and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
agreed with the bishops, and the King and Parliament 
gave the governmental sanction. Thus oui Mother Church 
reasserted her ancient Catholic independence. The Eng- 
lish bishops in taking their oath of office were no longer 
allowed to speak of the Bishop of Rome as " the Pope," 
but simply as " the Bishop of Rome," and " fellow brother," 
— " as the old manner of the most ancient bishops hath 
been." 7 

All that was done in the way of reform, however, under 
Henry VIII., and his son Edward VI., was undone under 
Queen Mary, 1553 to 1558. Mary was a sincere and big- 
oted Romanist, and succeeded in bringing Parliament and 
Convocation to rescind the recent acts against the supre- 
macy of the Bishop of Rome, to restore the Latin lan- 
guage, etc. 

6. 4 Q,uod Eomanus Episcopus non habet majorem jurisdictionem sibi a 
Deo collatam in hoc regno quam aiiusquivis externus Episcopus." — Journal of 
Convocation. 

7. Heart's Eccl. Kecs. quoted in Coits 41 Early Hist.," p. 171. 



144 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



This second subjugation of the English Church to Rome, 
achieved in a few weeks and lasting less than five years, 
was a sort of miniature reproduction of the previous 
usurpation which extended over several centuries. It was 
equally unjust, and was as justly abolished. 

Mary illegally removed and put to death a number of 
the bishops, and in fact burned to the stake some 280 per- 
sons for their religious opinions. Still nothing was done 
to break the continuity of the English Church. Pole, a 
cousin of the Queen, was elected Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, but would not be consecrated while his predecessor 
in office, the reforming Archbishop, was alive. The day 
after Cranmer's execution, Pole was consecrated by several 
English bishops. 

When Elizabeth came to the throne, she as a good Catho- 
lic, used all her influence to save the English Church, on 
the one hand, from being permanently enslaved to Rome, 
and on the other, from losing any of the essentials of true 
Catholicity. We have already seen that our Church at the 
Reformation invented no new doctrines, but merely re- 
tained the three Creeds, the Bible and the general beliefs 
of the Early Church. Did she also at this crisis in her his- 
tory, keep the Apostolic Succession, and her lawful jurisdic- 
tion? In other words: Is the Anglo-Catholic Church to- 
day (a) a Protestant Sect? (having neither ministry nor 
jurisdiction), or (b) a schism? (having the ministry but no 
jurisdiction), or (c) A Catholic Church — having not only 
the Faith, Sacraments, and worship, but also that Apos- 
tolic Fellowship which comes of valid orders and lawful 
jurisdiction ? 



CHAPTER XVII. 



ANGLICAN ORDERS. 

"As the Reformation did not find the English bigoted Papists, so neither 
was it conducted in such a manner as to make them zealous Protestants." — 
Macaulay's Essays, " Burleigh and His Times." 

IN this sentence Macaulay, despite his inability to under- 
stand theology or appreciate ecclesiastical movements, 
stumbles on an important truth, viz.: that between Papist 
and Protestant stands the true Catholic ; and to make Eng- 
lish Christians true Catholics as distinguished from both Pap- 
ists and Protestants, was the object of the English Refor- 
mation. Queen Elizabeth struck the key-note of Anglo- 
Catholic independence when she replied to those English 
bishops who requested her to continue the arrangements 
which Queen Mary had made with Rome : "Our records 
show that the papal jurisdiction over this realm was usurpation. 
To no power whatever is my crown subject save to that of 
Christ the King of Kings. I shall, therefore, regard as 
enemies, both to God and myself, all such of my subjects 
as shall henceforth own any foreign or usurped authority 
within my realm." 

All the bishops, except Bonner of London, attended the 
Coronation of Elizabeth, January 13, 1559. The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury had breathed his last within a few 



146 REASONS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



hours of Queen Mary's death. Nine other bishops had 
died. Indeed, out of the twenty-seven dioceses of our 
Church, thirteen were canonically vacant, 1 fourteen were 
canonically filled. Of the fourteen bishops, nine were de- 
prived of their sees for refusing to take the oath to the 
new Queen ; five were favorable to reform, together with 
several suffragan Bishops ; moreover, there were the Irish 
bishops, who, almost to a man, accepted the Reformation. 

Of course, ordination by one bishop, though irregular, 
would have been valid, 2 but no such desperate expedient 
was necessary. 

The first thing to be done was to elect, confirm and con- 
secrate a new Archbishop of Canterbury. The Dean and 
Cathedral Chapter petitioned the Queen to allow them to 
elect an Archbishop in the room of Archbishop Pole, lately 
deceased. To their request the Queen granted the usual 
Conge cP elire, as follows : 

"The Queen, to her beloved in Christ, the Dean and 
Chapter of the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury, greet- 
ing :— 

"On your part, a humble supplication has been made 
to us, that, whereas the aforesaid Church, by the natural 
death of the Most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, 
the Lord Reginald Pole, Cardinal, the last Archbishop 

1. Turberville of Exeter, Morgan of St. David's, Bourne of Bath and Wells, 
Heath of York, and probably also Scott of Chester were intruders thrust into the 
eees uncanonically by Queen Mary, while the lawful occupants of the sees were 
still living. I do not take them into account. 

2. The first Roman Catholic bishop in the U. S. A., Dr. Carroll, had but one 
consecrator, the titular Bishop of Ragal, Dr. Walmsley, who appears to have had 
only the same uncanonical consecration himself. See Hook's Preface to Life of 
Bp. Hobart, p. 25. The Swedish and the 11 Old Catholic " Episcopates also come 
through a single bishop 



AUTHORITY, 



147 



thereof, is now vacant and destitute of the solace of a pas- 
tor, we would be graciously pleased to grant to you our 
fundatorial License to elect another Archbishop and Pas- 
tor. We, favourably inclined to your prayers in this 
matter, have thought fit to grant you this License. Re- 
quiring that you may elect such a person Archbishop and 
Pastor, who may be devoted to God, and useful and faith- 
ful to us and our kingdom. 

" In testimony of which thing, etc., witness the Queen at 
Westminster, the 18th day of July, 1559." 3 

The Dean and Chapter then, " according to the ancient 
manner and laudable custom of the aforesaid Church, 
anciently used and inviolably observed," chose the devout 
and scholarly Matthew Parker, Priest and Doctor of Divin- 
ity, August 1st, 1559. Parker had been ordained to the 
Priesthood according to the Latin Pontifical. On the 6th 
day of the following December, the Queen issued letters 
patent to six bishops, as follows : 

"Elizabeth, by the grace of God, of England, France, 
and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, etc., to the 
Reverend Fathers in Christ, Anthony, Bishop of Llandaff ; 
William Barlow, sometime Bishop of Bath, now elect of 
Chichester ; John Scory, sometime Bishop of Chichester, 
now elect of Hereford ; Miles Coverdale, sometime Bishop 
of Exeter ; John, Suffragan, of Bedford ; John, Suffragan, 
of Thetford ; John Bale, Bishop of Ossary, greeting : — 

" Whereas, the Archiepiscopal See of Canterbury being 
lately vacant by the natural death of the Lord Reginald 



3. RolVs Patents, 1 EUz., p. 6, and Rymer, vol. 15, p. 536, quoted in Bailey's 
"Defence of Holy Orders in the Church of England." 



148 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



Pole, Cardinal, last and immediate Archbishop and Pastor 
of the same, upon humble petition of the Dean and Chap- 
ter of our Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Christ, at 
Canterbury, we, by our letters patent, have granted to the 
same, license to elect for themselves another Archbishop 
and Pastor of the See aforesaid ; and the said Dean and 
Chapter, by virtue of our aforesaid license obtained, have 
elected for themselves and the Church aforesaid, our be- 
loved in Christ, Matthew Parker, D. D., as Archbishop 
and Pastor. We, accepting that election, have granted to 
the said election our royal assent and also favor, and this 
by the tenor of these presents we signify to you: Requir- 
ing and strictly commanding you by the faith and affec- 
tion in which you are held by us, that you, or at least 
four 4 of you, would effectually confirm * * * the 
aforesaid election, and consecrate the said Matthew Parker, 
Archbishop and Pastor of the Church aforesaid, and per- 
form and execute all and singular other things which 
belong in this matter to your pastoral office, according to 
the form of the statutes set forth and provided. * * * 

" In witness whereof, we have caused these our letters to 
be made patent. 

"Witness ourselves at Westminster, the sixth day of 
December, the second year of our reign." 5 

Every precaution was now taken that the new Arch- 
bishop-elect — the successor of Archbishop Pole, the sixty- 
eighth Archbishop in unbroken line from Augustine — 

4. It is a civil law in England that an Episcopal Ordination mnst be per- 
formed by an Archbishop and at least two bishops, but if no Archbishop takes 
part, then by at least four bishops, as was the case in Parker's Consecration. 

5. Parker's Register, vol. L, p. 3; and Roll's Chapel, quoted by Bailey, p. 7. 



AUTHORITY. 



149 



might be validly and lawfully ordained. On the 9th day of 
the same month, in the church of " St. Mary-le-Bov/," Dr. 
Parker's election was regularly confirmed, open challenge 
being made for any one to show reason why the elect 
should not be consecrated. No objection was made. Ac- 
cordingly, on Sunday, the 17th of December, 1559, in the 
chapel of the Archiepiscopal Palace at Lambeth, the sol- 
emn and sacramental ceremony of Consecration was per- 
formed in the presence of bishops, bishops-elect, priests, 
royal commissioners, noblemen, and commoners. 

what a scene was that ! And how memorable the act 
which saved to England's venerable Church that ministry 
of grace and power, which Christ had ordained ! 

The chancel of the chapel was beautifully adorned. At 
the east end stood the altar, at the north side of which was 
placed the Bishop's throne. At six o'clock in the morn- 
ing the procession entered the west door of the chapel — 
the Archbishop-elect, vested in scarlet cassock and hood, 
with four wax torches borne before him, and accompanied 
by the four bishops, who were to unite in the laying on of 
hands, viz. : William Barlow, Bishop of Bath and Wells ; 
John Scory, Bishop of Chichester ; Miles Coverdale, Bishop 
of Exeter, and John Hodgkins, Bishop Suffragan of Bed- 
ford. Of these four bishops, two had been consecrated 
according to the Latin form of the old English Ordinal in 
the days of Henry VIII., and two according to the Eng- 
lish form of the Ordinal during the reign of Edward VI. 

Weighing my words with care, I affirm there can be no 
more doubt that these four prelates were lawful Catholic 
bishops, than that Anselm or Augustine, Ignatius or St. 
John were partakers of the Apostolic ministry. 



150 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Morning Prayer is now said by Andrew Peerson, chap- 
lain of the Archbishop-elect. The Bishop of Chichester 
ascends the pulpit, and taking as his text : " The elders 
who are among you I exhort who am also an elder," he 
preaches (as the old Lambeth register has it) u not inele- 
gantly." Now the Bishops withdraw to vest for the Holy 
Communion, and return, the Archbishop-elect in the sur- 
plice of a priest, Bishop Barlow, the Celebrant, with the 
archdeacons of Canterbury and Lincoln, who serve at the 
altar as deacon and sub-deacon, in gorgeous copes of silk. 
After the Gospel the candidate is presented ; the Queen's 
mandate for the Consecration is read ; the oath of office is 
administered ; 6 the people are bidden to pray for the can- 

6. In the oath, after declaring that the Queen is the only " Supreme Gov- 
ernor of Thys Eealme, as well in spiritnall or ecclesiastical things or causes, as 
temporal," come the words: ''And that no foreign prince, person, prelate, State 
or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superioritie, pre- 
eminence, or authoritie ecclesiasticall or spiritnall within this realme." It 
should be remembered that Elizabeth never took the title of "Head of the 
Church." Henry Till, took it, but convocation allowed it only with this quali- 
fication: As far as the law of Christ alloweth. It was abolished in 1553 and 
never revived. 

The oath of supremacy has long been abolished. The present oath of allegi- 
ance runs thus: "I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her 
Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law." 

Even Henry VIII. distinctly repudiated any claim to spiritual authority, such 
as pertains to Episcopal and Sacerdotal functions. All that Elizabeth claimed 
was the ancient privileges of the Christian Kings of England. The title of the 
law of I. Eliz. shows this : " An act to restore to the Crown the ancient jurisdic- 
tion over the estate, ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign powers 
repugnant to the same." And Elizabeth distinctly declared : "The Crown chal- 
lenged no superiority to define, decide, or determine any article or point of the 
Christian faith or religion ; or to change any right or ceremony before received 
and observed in the Catholic Church." Says Bp. Forbes: "The Crown is no 
more the head of the Church in England than of the [Presbyterian] kirk in Scot- 
land." 

Article XXXVII. says : "We give not to our Princes the ministering either of 
God's word, or of the Sacraments; * * * but that only prerogative which we 
see to have been given always to all godly Princes, in Holy Scripture, by God 
Himself," etc. 



AUTHORITY. 



151 



didate ; Bishop Barlow sings the Litany, the choir respond- 
ing. After the usual questions and answers, and special 
prayers, the four bishops lay their apostolic hands on the 
head of the kneeling priest, each one of them saying in Eng- 
lish the ancient words of Consecration ; and Dr. Parker 
rises a bishop in the Church of God, and is vested in the 
episcopal robes. No part of this important transaction 
was done in a corner. After the service the Archbishop 
gave a reception in his palace ; and that night he made the 
following entry in his private diary, which is still preserved 
in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge : 

" Seventeenth December, in the year 1559, I was conse- 
crated Archbishop of Canterbury. Alass ! Alass ! O Lord, 
to what times hast thou preserved me ? Lo, I am come 
into deep waters, and the storm hath overwhelmed me. O 
Lord I am oppressed, undertake for me, and with thy 
mighty spirit strengthen me. For I am a man, both of a 
short time and weak," etc. 

On the first of January, the new Archbishop was en- 
throned in the cathedral, after which he was placed in pos- 
session of the temporalities of his see, and summoned to 
his seat in the House of Lords. 

I know of no event in Anglo-Catholic history better cer- 
tified than the Consecration of Parker. I give here a list 
of the chief documents which prove the fact of his Conse- 
cration : 

" a. The register of the act in the archives of Lambeth, 
written in the same hand as the registers of Cranmer and 
Pole, and attested by the same notaries public as Pole's 
own record. 



152 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



b. A contemporary copy of part of this register in the 
State Paper Office. 

c. Another contemporary copy of the register in the 
library of Corpus Chris ti College, Cambridge, 

d. Parker's autograph note-book, in the same library, 
mentioning his Consecration on December 17, 1559. 

e. The casual mention of the fact, as an item of news, 
in the contemporary MS. diary of Henry Machyn, pre- 
served in the British Museum. 

/. The contemporary MS. 1 4 Zurich Letters," testifying 
to the same fact, and but lately discovered. 

g. The conduct of Bishop Bonner, in his suit against 
Some, Bishop of Winchester, in which the fact of Parker's 
Consecration itself was allowed by Bonner. 

h. The precise dove-tailing of the event into the long 
and intricate series of civil (not ecclesiastical) documents 
required by the State in evidence of Parker's right to his 
barony, revenues, seat in the House of Lords, and coer- 
cive jurisdiction in his province. 

i. The manner in which contemporary writers, such as 
Camden, Holinshed, etc., take the matter as notorious and 
undisputed.*' 

Against all this overwhelming evidence one, and only 
one, attack has been made, that known as the " Nag's 
Head Fable," which must be briefly and candidly no- 
ticed. 

In the year 1604, forty-five years after Parker's Conse- 
cration in Lambeth Chapel, a wily Jesuit, named Holy- 
wood, published a pamphlet in which he claimed to have 
been told by one Thomas Neal (then fourteen years dead) 
that he, peeping through a key-hole in the " Xag's Head " 



AUTHORITY. 



tavern, in Cheapside, saw Scory lay his hands on Parker, 
and some others, who in turn laid their hands on him 7 
and thus all made each other bishops ! ! 

The story is absurd on the face of it ; but, like the Jew- 
ish fable that the disciples stole the body of Jesus while 
the watch slept, it is the best that ingenious malice has 
been able to devise against the fact of Parker's Consecra- 
tion. The Earl of Nottingham, and others, however, wha 
had attended the Consecration at Lambeth, were still liv- 
ing to bear witness against this " tale of foolery." 

I cannot forbear to transcribe here, from Bailey's cc De- 
fence of Holy Orders " (p. 30), the quaint and graphia 
record of the effect of the fable on King James I. as given 
by William Hampton, in 1721 : 

u In the beginning of King James his reigne, there came 
out a book under the name of Sanders with the story of 
the Nag's Head Ordination. This book made a great 
noyse, and was wonderfully cried up by the Roman Cath- 
olics as sapping the whole Reformation at once by de- 
stroying the Episcopacy. This book was shewed to King 
James, and upon his reading of it, it stratled [sic] him. 
Upon this he called his Privy Council and showed it to 
them, and withal told 'em that he was a stranger among 
'em, and knew nothing of the matter, and directing him- 
self to the Archbishop who was present, My Lord (says 
he), I hope you can prove and make good your ordina- 

7. Here is one manifest absurdity, for Scory himself had been consecrated, 
Aug. 30, 1551, by Archbishop Cranmer and two other bishops. 

Romanists, of all others, are debarred from questioning Bishop Scory's 
orders, for he is one of the reforming Bishops, who was "reconciled" during 
the Roman usurpation under Queen Mary; and, at the time of the Queen's death, 
was actually serving as a Suffragan or Co-adjutor Bishop under Bonner, the Ro- 
manizing Bishop of London. The fact is attested by Bonner in his own register^ 



154 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



tion, for by my sol, man (says he), if this story be true we 
are no Church. The Archbishop replied, he had never 
heard the story before, but did not question but he could 
detect the forgery of it, and by examining the Lambeth 
register could prove Archbishop Parker's ordination. At 
another Privy Council upon the same account, the old 
Earle of Nottingham was present, and when it was debated 
the old Earle stood up and told the King and Council, he 
could give them full satisfaction as to that matter upon 
his own personal knowledge, for (says he) Archbishop 
Parker's ordination made a great noyse about towne that 
he was to be ordained such a day in Lambeth Chappel, 
which drew a great deale of company thither, and out of 
curiosity I went thither myself, and was present at his 
ordination, and he was ordained by the form in King Ed- 
ward's Common Prayer Book. I myself (said he) had the 
hook in my hand all the time, and went along with the 
ordination, and when it was over I dined with 'em, and 
there was an instrument drawn up of the form and order 
of it, which instrument I saw and read over Some time 
after (I being acquainted with the Archbishop and being 
at Lambeth with him) he told me he had sent that instru- 
ment to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge to be laid 
up in their Library in perpetuam rei memoriam, and sayes 
the old Earle, I believe it may be in the Library still if 
your Majesty please to have it searched for. 

"By my sol, man (says ye King), thou speakest to the 
purpose, we must see this instrument, and this puts the 
thing out of dispute. Upon this a messenger was sent, 
the instrument found and brought to ye king, he shewed 
it and had it read in Council, and desired the old Earle 



AUTHORITY. 



155 



of Nottingham to look upon it, and see if he could remem- 
ber whether it was the original instrument which was 
drawn up at the ordination. The Earl perusing of it de- 
clared it was y-e original he saw and read when Arch- 
bishop Parker was ordained. The King upon this 
addressing himself to several Popish Lords who were then 
present in Council, my Lords, sayes he, what do you now 
think of ye matter ? They all declared their abhorrence of 
the forgery of ye Nag's Head ordination, and several of 
'em upon it left the Popish Communion, and came over 
to ye Church of England, declaring that Church was not 
.fitt to be trusted with their souls who would invent and 
abett such a notorious falsity. For truth of this I witness 
my hand." 

" Wm. Hampton, rector of Worth, 1721." 

I would add that, while unscrupulous controversialists 
still make use of this fable, all candid Roman Catholic 
scholars long since abandoned it, Lingard, 8 Charles Butler, 
Oanon Tierney, etc/ Indeed we are indebted to Roman 

8. Lingard' s repudiation of the fiction is as follows: 

"To this testimony of the register [of Abp. Parker's consecration] what 
could the champions of the Nag's Head story oppose? They had but one re- 
source, to deny its authenticity ; to pronounce it a forgery. But there was noth- 
ing to countenance such a supposition. The most experienced eye could not 
discover in the entry itself, or the form of the characters, or the color of the ink, 
the slightest vestige of imposture. * * * If external confirmation were want- 
ing, there was the archbishop's diary, or journal, a parchment roll in which he 
had been accustomed to enter the principal events of his life, and in which, 
under the date of the 17th of December, 1559, is found: 

"' Consecratus sum in archiepiscopura Cantuariens. Heu! heu! Domine 
Deus, in quae tempora servasti me ! ' 

"Another confirmation to which no objection can be reasonably opposed 
occurs in the Zurich letters, in which we find Sampson informing Peter Martyr, 
on the 6th of January, 1560, that Dr. Parker had been consecrated Archbishop of 
Canterbury during the preceding month."— Lingard' s "History of England," 
vol. vii., note G. 



150 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Catholic writers for some of the ablest defences of Angli- 
can Orders ever written — e. g. Courayer, Colbert, Bossuet, 
Affre (Archbishop of Paris) and Cardinal de la Luzerne. 9 
It should also be remembered that the Bishop of Rome, 
Julius III., ordered Archbishop Pole to absolve and recon- 
cile bishops and priests ordained in Edward VI. 's time, 
but not to re-ordain them. Pius IV. also agreed to recog- 
nize all the reforms under Elizabeth, if only she would 
recognize his supremacy. After she declined to do so, he 
requested the Council of Trent to declare English Orders 
invalid, which the council expressly refused to do. Horly, 
Archbishop of Paris, and Innocent XII., Bishop of Rome^ 
advised James II. to have the non-juring English bishops 
keep up the Apostolic succession in England, which they 
certainly would not have done, had they not believed in 
Anglican Orders. Richard Selden, a Roman priest, wrote 
as follows. 

" I myself lately for my own satisfaction, searched the 
registers, and I found clearly, that Archbishop Parker was 
sufficiently, truly, and canonically ordained and conse- 
crated." 10 

Archbishop Parker, of course, ordained many bishops, 
but as he was always assisted by two or more bishops, even 
had he never been ordained himself (and there is no ordi- 
nation in history more certain than his), our Orders would 
still be valid. 

For the benefit of any who may still choose to be skep- 

9. Du Pin, De Girardin, and Beauvoir, in their correspondence with Arch- 
bishop Wake (1718), fully acknowledged Anglican Orders. See Dr. Pusey's Ireni- 
con, pp. 215-10. 

10. Selden's "De Spiritibus Pontificii," quoted in Bailey's Df. of Holy 
Ord., p. 9. 



AUTHORITY. 



157 



tical on this subject, and especially any Roman Catholic 
brother who may chance to read this sketch, I would call 
attention to one important fact in the post-reformation his- 
tory of the Anglo-Catholic Church. Early in the seven- 
teenth century a Roman Catholic Bishop, Marc Antonio 
de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, conformed to the Eng- 
lish Church, and was appointed Dean of Windsor. He 
took part in ordaining two English bishops, George Mon- 
teigne, of London, and Nicolas Felton, of Ely, from both 
of whom the eight bishops derived their Orders, who sur- 
vived the seventeen years of persecution under the com- 
monwealth, and handed down the succession from 1660 to 
the present time. Observe also that every one of these 
eight bishops inherited the Irish succession as well, from 
George, the Bishop of Deny, Hampton, the Archbishop 
of Armagh, and Murray, the Bishop of Kilfenora. No loss 
of continuity has ever been alleged against either the Irish 
or the Italian Succession, so that, even if we waive the old 
English Succession, there is no possibility of invalidating 
the present Anglo-Catholic Episcopate. 11 

11. The following extract from that admirable tract on "Anglican Orders 
and Jurisdiction" (Church League Press, 18 Liberty St., New York), will explain 
this more fully : 

"At the restoration of Charles II., in 1660, after Episcopal government had 
been suspended for seventeen years under the Commonwealth, there were eight 
prelates of the Anglican Church still surviving. From these the existing line is 
derived, and it is convenient, therefore, to narrow the inquiry to the validity of 
their succession. They were Juxon of London (at once translated to Canter- 
bury), Frewen of York, Duppa of Winchester, Wren of Ely, King of Chichester 
Skinner of Oxford, Warner of Rochester, and Roberts of Bangor. 

"All of these, except King and Frewen, were consecrated by Archbishop Laud 
with sometimes four, and sometimes five, co-consecrators. The two others 
raised to the mitre while Laud was in prison, were severally consecrated by 
Juxon with three other Bishops, and by Williams, Archbishop of York, with 
four others, including Duppa. 

"Laud and Williams were consecrated within a week of each other, one by six 



158 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



The American Episcopate comes through four bishops 
ordained, one by three Scottish bishops, and three by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, with the canonical number of 
assisting bishops. 

In the case of the English Colonial Bishops the same 
care has been taken. The Anglican Church, therefore, has 
u continued steadfastly in the Apostles' Fellowship." Her 
two hundred and twenty-five bishops to-day, bearing the 
Saviour's commission to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
and inheriting his promise, " Lo, I am with you always 
even unto the end of the world," are, with the twelve 
apostles and all their successors in the Catholic Episco- 
pate, a perpetual "witness of His Resurrection," fulfilling 
the Saviour's prophesy : " Ye shall be witnesses unto Me 
* * * unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts, i., 8.) 

Behold the " Father of Waters " as he pours his flood 
into the southern gulf. In that mighty current are blended 
the rain-drops that fell on the plateaux of the north, upon 
the Alleghany Hills, and among the mountain ranges that 
lie towards the setting sun. So the Anglo-Catholic Epis- 
copate draws its potent and beneficent authority from St. 



bishops, the other by five of those six. Among them were George Monteigne of 
London, and Xicolas Felton of Ely, who had been consecrated in 1617 by Marc 
Antonio de Domonis, Archbishop of Spalato, assisting Abbot of Canterbury, and 
four others. Another of their consecrators was Field of Llandaif, one of whose 
consecrators was George, Bishop of Derry ; and a fourth was Howson of Oxford, 
who derived, through Morton of Durham, from Hampton, Archbishop of Armagh. 
Morton and Bancroft of Oxford (who had been consecrated by William Murray of 
Kilfenora) were amongst Duppa's consecrators. 

44 Thus in the present line of Anglican prelates, three successions meet, the 
Italian, the Irish, and the English. ISTo allegation of loss of continuity is urged 
against the two former, and thus, even if the third be imperfect, the cord is un- 
broken. 

11 That the English strand is as perfect as the two others is easy of proof." 



AUTHORITY. 159 



James in Jerusalem, 12 from St. John in Ephesus, from SS. 
Paul and Peter in the west. And as the rain which feeds 
the river is : from above," so the grace of Holy Orders 
flows down to us by way of the Orient and Italy, by way 
of Gaul and Britain of old — Hebrew and Greek, Roman, 
Celtic, and Saxon, it comes from above, and swells that 
" River, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of 
God." 



12 St. David, Archbishop of Wales in the sixth century, was consecrated by 
the Patriarch of Jerusalem. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XVII. 



PIUS IV. AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 

TT is asserted in almost every history of the Anglican 
1 Church that Pins IV. agreed to recognize the English 
reformation, provided that his own supremacy should be 
acknowledged. This concession on his part is valuable as 
showing that our Church had lost nothing which even in 
the estimation of Rome, is essential to a true Church. 

Hore, in his " Eighteen Centuries of the Church in Eng- 
land" (p. 348), says: "Pope Paul IV. having died on 
August 18, 1559, was succeeded by Pius IV. The new 
Pope sent his nuncio with a letter to the Queen, announc- 
ing his approval and willingness to accept the new Prayer 
Book, as well as the Communion in both kinds, if only the 
Queen would acknowledge his supremacy." 

Jennings, in his excellent 11 Ecclesia Anglicana n (p. 319), 
says: " Convinced that nothing was to be gained in Eng- 
land by hostility to the throne, Pius made friendly over- 
tures to Elizabeth. We have it on good authority that he 
offered to sanction the Prayer Book of 1559, provided the 
English Church recognized the supremacy of Rome." 

Cutts, in his " Turning Points of English Church His- 
tory " (p. 237), says : "A new Pope, Pius IV., in 1560 



AUTHORITY. 



161 



addressed to her (Elizabeth) a letter of very different tenor, 
making overtures for a reconciliation. He offered that, on 
condition of her adhesion to the see of Rome, the Pope 
would approve of the Book of Common Prayer, including 
the Liturgy or Communion Service and the Ordinal. Al- 
though his Holiness complained that many things were 
omitted from the Prayer Book which ought to be there, he 
admitted that the book nevertheless contained nothing 
contrary to truth, while it certainly comprehended all that 
is necessary for salvation. He was therefore prepared to 
authorize the book if the Queen would receive it from him 
and on his authority." 

Blunt, in his historical introduction to the Prayer Book 
(p. xxxv.), says : "It is worth notice, however, that the 
Book of Common Prayer as thus revised in 1559 was 
quietly accepted by the great body of Romanist laity; 
and also that the Pope himself saw so little to object to in 
it that he offered to give the book his full sanction if his 
authority were recognized by the Queen and the kingdom." 
And he queues Sir Edward Coke as saying that the Pope, 
Pius IV., u before the time of his excommunication against 
Queen Elizabeth denounced, sent his letter unto her 
Majesty, in which he did allow the Bible and Book of 
Divine Service, as it is now used among us, to be authentic 
and not repugnant to truth. But that therein was con- 
tained enough necessary to salvation, though there was 
not in it so much as might conveniently be, and that he 
would also allow it unto us without changing any part, so as 
her Majesty would acknowledge to receive it from the Pope, 
and by his allowance, which her Majesty denying to do, she 
was then presently by the same Pope excommunicated. 



162 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



And this is the truth concerning Pope Pius Quartus, as I 
have faith to God and men. I have oftentimes heard 
avowed by the late Queen her own words, and I have con- 
ferred with some Lords that were of greatest reckoning in 
the State, who had seen and read the Letter, which the 
Pope sent to that effect, as have been by me specified. 
And this upon my credit, as I am an honest man, is most 
true." Blunt moreover gives a list of authorities, viz.: 
"The Lord Coke, his speech and charge, London, 1607- 
See also Camden, Ann, Eliz., p. 59, ed. 1615. Twysden's 
Historical Vindication of the Church of England, p. 175. 
Validity of the Orders of the Church of England, by Hum- 
phrey Prideaux, D. D., 1688. Bramhall's Works, ii., 85, 
ed. 1845. Bishop Babington's Notes on the Pentateuch ; 
on Numbers, vii. Courayer's Defence of the Dissertation 
on the Validity of English Ordinations, ii., 360, 378. Har- 
rington's Pius IV. and the Book of Common Prayer, 1856.'' 

Our own Van Antwerp, in his very readable and com- 
prehensive " Church History" (vol. iii., p. 144-5), gives 
the same story. 

The following extract from Butler's " Historical Memoirs 
of the Catholics " (Lond., ed. 1822, vol. i., ch. 22, § 9, p. 
280), is especially valuable, as coming from a learned 
Roman Catholic : 

" In May, 1560, he (Pius the fourth), sent Vincentio 
Parpalia * * * to the Queen with a letter, most ear- 
nestly but respectfully entreating her to return to the 
bosom of the Church. On this occasion, Parpalia, if we 
are to credit Camden, was instructed by the Pope to offer 
to the Queen, that the Pope would annul the sentence of 
Clement, his predecessor, against her mother's marriage, 



AUTHORITY. 



163 



settle the liturgy by his authority, and grand to the English 
the use of the sacrament under both kinds. 

" Parpalia reached Bruxelles ; from that place he ac- 
quainted the English ministry with the object of his mis- 
sion, and proceeded to Calais. The propriety of admit- 
ting him was debated in the royal council and determined 
in the negative. 

"The conciliating Pope was not disheartened ; at a sub- 
sequent time he deputed the Abbe Martenengo to the 
Queen, to notify to her the sitting of the Council of Trent? 
and to request she would send an ambassador to it, and 
permit the prelates of England to attend it. Some objected 
to the Pope, that this was showing too great a condescen- 
sion towards persons who had formerly separated from 
the Church. 1 Nothing,' said the worthy pontiff, is hu- 
miliating to gain souls to Christ.' Both the King of 
Spain and the Duke of Alva seconded * * * the 
Pope's request, but the Queen was inflexible ; * * * 
she therefore refused to permit the abbe to enter any part 
of her dominions." 

The reader will also find it in Bailey's " Jurisdiction and 
Mission of the Ang. Epis.," p. 65 ; in Hardwicke's " Refor- 
mation," and in scores of other reliable works. I have 
never seen the story controverted or even questioned. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



ANGLICAN JURISDICTION AND CATHOLICITY. 



"Men cannot set np a new Church, so we think, and we bless God that we 
have the old Church cleansed and purified."— Bishop Lee, the Presiding Bishop 
of the Church in the TJ. S. (Second Letter to the Assistant Bishop of N. Y.J 



HEN the bishops of the whole Anglican communion, 



V V English, Irish, Scotch, American, Colonial, and Mis- 
sionary, from all parts of the world, assembled together at 
Lambeth, in the year of our Lord 1867, the Synod declared 
" that there was one true Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
founded by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; that of 
this true Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Church of 
England and the Churches in communion with her are 
living members ; and that the Church of England earn- 
estly desires to maintain freely the Catholic faith as set 
forth by (Ecumenical councils of the Universal Church." 

A National Church might have valid orders, and yet by 
heresy or schism have cut itself off from Catholic Chris- 
tendom and have lost its jurisdiction. If all jurisdiction 
flows from the Bishop of Rome (which is the modern 
Ultramontane fiction), then, in casting off his authority, 
our Church became schismatic. But it is enough to say 
that this Ultramontane theory is a recent innovation — 
nuper inventum et ante haec tempora inauditum. 




AUTHORITY. 



365 



Oar Church in the British period owed nothing to the 
Bishop of Rome. According to the ancient canons of the 
■universal Church, every provincial Church possessed in- 
herent jurisdiction, 1 and notably the autocephalous Churches, 
as of Cyprus and Britain. When Augustine received the 
Archbishopric of Canterbury, it was not as a lieutenant of 
the Roman Pontiff, but " as an independent bishop of a See 
in a country which had never been included in the Patri- 
archate of Rome, 2 as the "Papa alterius orbis." s Gregory, 
in fact, appointed Augustine to be Archbishop of London 
(though by the authority of the King of Kent he was actu- 
ally placed in Canterbury instead of London, 4 and Augus- 
tine was consecrated by French bishops ; but Gregory 
ordered that "for the future the Archbishop should be 
consecrated by his own synod" (i. e. y in England), and 
that his jurisdiction should extend over the whole island. 

1. See Bishop Forbes on Art. XXXVII., and Bailey on the "Jurisdiction and 
Mission of the Ang. Epis.," Sec. IV. 

2. Id., p. 44. Cf.also note, p. 96, of "The Eng. Ref.," by the Rt. Rev. J. 
Williams, D. D., LL.D., Bp. of Conn. "The Roman Patriarchate," says he, " in- 
cluded the ten provinces placed under the Vicarius urbis, namely : Italy, south 
of the Italic Diocese, and the three adjacent islands. 1 ' The editor of the "Church 
Times" says: "We know from Ruffinus (and the matter has been thoroughly 
worked out by the great French Catholic scholar, Dupin, in his treatise De Ant i- 
qua Disciplina) that the Roman Patriarchate extended over no more than the ten 
" suburbicarian " provinces of Italy— those under the civil jurisdiction of the 
Roman praetor — and the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Elba. What decides 
Patriarchal authority is the right of consecrating Metropolitans. And the Popes 
did not get this power, even in North Italy, till the days of Gregory the Great. 
All the West, outside the limits named, was and is extra-Patriarchal." 

3. Coit's Early Hist., etc., note, p. 140. "Pope of another world." 

4. The Christian Kings of England always had a share in appointing bishops. 
See [e. g.] the general synod of the English Ch., A. D. 1072, where it was decreed 
among other things: "If the Archbishop of York shall die, his successor, accept- 
ing the gift of the archbishopric from the King, shall come to Canterbury to 
receive canonical ordination." — Wm. of Malmsbury, Hist, of the King's Book, 3, 
p. 265. 



166 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



The English Church was, therefore, complete in itself. 
And as to its Archbishops, the learned canonist, Thomassi- 
nus, says : u The confirmation of the Jtoman See was. not to 
be waited for." The Archbishops both of Canterbury and 
York were generally appointed by the king, elected by the 
clergy or Cathedral Chapter, and consecrated in England. 
Until into the twelfth century only two Archbishops of 
Canterbury, and none of York, were consecrated by the 
Bishop of Rome ; nor is there even "any clear instance 
of the Pope's confirming the election of English Metropol- 
itans till the time of Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
in 1174." The English Church was never lawfully de- 
pendent on Rome, or Constantinople, or any other foreign 
See for her jurisdiction or ecclesiastical right to exercise 
her Catholic orders and spiritual power within definite 
territorial limits. "The English clergy derive their juris- 
diction from their own bishops, and these from their 
bishops who went before them back to the beginning, as 
every Christian Church whatever derived theirs, without 
one thought of the Bishop of Rome, for some 1200 years, 
and as the whole Eastern Church derives hers until this 
very day." 5 

" The only difference in the ' English Catholic Church,' 
as it existed previous to the dynasty of the Tudors, and 
as it stood at the termination of the reign of William III., 
was that certain ecclesiastical abuses had arisen, which 



5. Haddan Apost. Succ. in the Ch. of England, p. 282. It should be remem- 
bered that the Bishop of Rome wished the Council of Trent to declare that all 
jurisdiction comes from "the chair of St. Peter." This, however, the council 
expressly refused to do. See Forbes on the Arts, Art. XXXVII., p. 774. 



AUTHORITY. 



167 



were corrected by Parliament and the clerical synods in 
convocation ; but the identity of the 4 English Catholic 
Church' was never destroyed. That sect which is now 
commonly called 6 Roman Catholics*' are nothing but a 
mere body of dissenters from the 'English Catholic 
Church,' and have never, constitutionally speaking, been 
arbitrarily deprived of a vested right." — (" Delolmeon the 
English Constitution," quoted in Greave's " Vindication 
of the Right of the Anglican Chr.," etc., p. 152.) 

The Anglican Reformers certainly had no idea of com- 
mitting the sin of schism or of making a Protestant church. 
They simply designed — and in the Providence of God 
accomplished — the freeing and purifying of so much of 
the Catholic Church as came under their own jurisdiction. 
As Bishop Williams remarks : " There is not the smallest 
thought of separating from the unity of the Catholic 
Church of Christ, far less of founding a new Church. The 
Jaw of historic continuity is all along asserted and acted 
on." 6 The continuous identity of the Anglican Church is 
distinctly asserted in the Preface to the English Prayer 
Book, in this passage : " The service in this Church of Eng- 
land, these many years, hath been read in Latin." It was, 
therefore, this same Church of England before as well as after 
the translation of its Prayer Book into a language under- 
standed of the people. 

But even had the English Church been guilty of schism 
(which she was not), it would have been justifiable (if 
ever a schism could be), for the corruption of Western 
Christendom had become intolerable. Even the Bishop 
of Rome himself, Adrian VI., who labored so hard for 



6. Eng. Ref., pp. 122-3. 



368 REASONS FOR BEING- A CHURCHMAN. 



reform during his brief pontificate (but as Bishop Wil- 
liams naively remarks, " Reforming popes seem to have 
had but short reigns "), freely admitted that " many abom- 
inations had existed for a long time, even in the Holy See. 
Yea, that all things had been grievously altered and per- 
verted." Unlike the so-called "reformers" on the conti- 
nent, who broke altogether with the past, and kept neither 
jurisdiction nor orders, our Church retained both, and 
indeed used as much care that on her part there should be 
no schism from the rest of the Catholic Church, as that 
there should be no loss of the Apostolic Succession or the 
Orthodox Faith. Canon xxx. of the Anglican code, in 
allusion to the Reformation, says : 

" So far was it from the Church of England to forsake 
and reject the Churches of Italy, Rome, Spain, and Ger- 
many, or any other such like Churches, that it doth with 
reverence retain those ceremonies which do neither endan- 
ger the Church of God, nor offend the minds of sober men ; 
and only departed from them in those particular points 
wherein they were fallen from themselves in their ancient 
integrity, and from the Apostolic Churches, which were 
their first founders." 

At the election and Consecration of Parker, there was 
no intimation of such a thing as his receiving and holding 
any different office in the Catholic Church from that of 
the sixty-seven previous occupants of the Throne of St. 
Augustine. The mandates for his election and Consecra- 
tion did not say that the Catholic Church being now at an 
end in England, a Protestant Archbishop would be elected 
for a Protestant church : but, on the contrary, after allud- 
ing to the vacancy occasioned by the death of " the Lord 



AUTHORITY. 169> 



Reginald Pole, last and immediate Archbishop," they 
ordered the election, confirmation, and Consecration of 
his successor in the same office, in the same Church. 7 Indeed, 
one Bishop — Kitchen of LlandafF — held his sacred office 
under Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, never for a 
moment imagining that he had been a bishop in more 
than one Church all the while. Out of 9,^00 clergy, only 
189, at the most, refused to accept the reforms which, how- 
ever important, were merely an episode in the continuous 
life of the Anglo-Catholic Church. Queen Elizabeth always 
professed herself a Catholic. When Pius IV. invited her 
to the Council of Trent in the same terms as the Protestant 
Princes, she returned an indignant remonstrance, saying 
that " an invidious distinction is made between me and 
such other Catholic potentates as have been invited to this 
Council." She also wrote to the German Emperor and 
some other Roman Catholic Princes, declaring : " There is 
no new faith propagated in England ; no religion set up 
but that which was commanded by our Saviour, preached 
by the primitive Church, and unanimously approved by 
the Fathers of the best antiquity." Archbishop Parker,, 
in his last will and testament, declared : " I profess that I 
do certainly believe and hold whatsoever the Holy Cath- 
olic Church believeth and receiveth." The mere casting 
off of the usurped dominion of a foreign prelate, who had 
no more right to the obedience of England than the Bishop 
of Delaware has to the obedience of Canada, did not in 
the least mar the Catholicity of our Church. During the 
reigns of Henry and Edward, and to the eleventh year of 
Elizabeth — 1531 to 1570— the English Church reasserted 



7. See Letters Patent in Chapter XVII. 



170 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



her independence of Rome, 8 and yet those English Church- 
men who really believed in the supremacy of the Roman 
Bishop, none the less worshipped and received the Sacra- 
ments in the parish churches, just as before. As Lord 
Chief Justice Coke said, in 1607 : " Generally (of) all the 
Papists in this kingdom, not any of them did refuse to 
come to our Church and yield their obedience to the laws 
established. And they all continued, not any one refus- 
ing to come to our churches during the first ten years of 
her Majesty's government." The Queen also asserts the 
same in a message to the French Government, in 1570, 
saying : " They did ordinarily resort * * * in all open 
places, to the churches, and to Divine service in the 
church, without any contradiction or show of misliking." 
It was the same also in Ireland. 

Thus the whole nation was peaceably settling down to 
the old Church, " Catholic, Reformed, and Free," when, in 
1570, 9 the Bishop of Rome, Pius V., issued his famous 
bull, entitled, " The Damnation and Excommunication of 

8. It must be remembered, too, that for some 200 years previous it had been 
unlawfnl for any English Churchman to receive any appointment from Rome, or 
make any appeal to Rome. 

9. "On April 27, 1570, the shameful mandate went forth, bidding all who 
would obey Pius V. to break with their own English Church, to secede and form 
conventicles, to abandon and dethrone their sovereign, and to subject their 
country, if they could, to a foreign invader."— Curteis 1 " Dissent in its Relation 
to the Church of England.'"' 

"The Church of Rome at the present day cannot be identified with the 
Church of England previous to the Reformation; the Roman Catholic bishops 
in England and Scotland are bishops of foreign sees, and neither they nor those 
who have been schismatically consecrated for the sees in Ireland, which at the 
time of the Reformation were canonically filled, can trace any descent from the 
bishops of the ancient churches in these kingdoms; the now bishops of the 
Church of England being the only representatives by episcopal succession or the 
ancient Celtic and Anglo-Saxon churches ; and the strongest illustration of this 
position is tint r the votaries of the Roman Catholic religion are distinguished by 



AUTHORITY. 



171 



Elizabeth" 10 — deposing the Queen, forsooth, absolving 
all her subjects from their oath of allegiance, and com- 
manding them to withdraw from the Church. A mere 
handful of Englishmen, in disloyalty to the Catholic 
Church, and in treason to the Government, seceded and 
formed the Roman Schism or Italian Mission in England. 

We never excommunicated them ; we never broke fel- 
lowship with them ; we have never repelled them from 
our altars. As St. Cyprian said of the Novatian schis- 
matics in the third century, "We did not depart from 
them, but they departed from us. 5,11 

The petty Schism thus started aimed at nothing less 
than the complete subjugation of the Catholic Church and 
the State of England, to a certain bishop residing in Italy. 
But despite Latin anathemas, Jesuit plots and Spanish 
Armadas, God saved both His Church and the State. 

The Roman schism in England has been a failure. It 
is a mere parasite and exotic having no organic connection 
with the ancient tree, no lineal descent from the dear old 
Catholic Church of St. Alban and St. Chad, Augustine, 
Theodore and Langton. It was not until 1850 that the 
Bishop of Rome presumed to intrude diocesan bishops into 
English Sees, in direct violation of the thirty-sixth Apos- 
tolic canon re-enacted in substance again and again by 

the adoption of a new creed, which the English Catholic Church at no one period 
of her existence ever recognized. 11 — ''Delolme on the English Constitution." 

"These are weighty words; they show that the Church of England reformed 
itself constitutionally, the bishops and clergy in their convocations, the Parlia- 
ment and the King representing the laity, assenting alike to the changes. This 
is the Church of England, and no foreign bishop has any lawful authority in its 
borders."— Rev. J. A. Greaves. 

10. See Coit's Early History, etc., Note, p. 70. 

11. De Unit. Eccl., p. 256. 



172 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



councils provincial and general. 12 Pius IX., moreover, in 
making Westminster, instead of Canterbury, the Metropoli- 
tan See of his English schism, seemed to forget that his 
infallible predecessor, Boniface, in the seventh century, de- 
creed that Canterbury should forever be the Metropolitan 
See of all Britain, no matter what changes should take 
place, pronouncing dreadful curses on any one who should 
presume to alter his decree. 13 

I leave it to any candid reader to say which are the 
schismatics, the Anglo-Catholics, who have remained in 
the old Church cleared of corruptions but not shorn of any 
mark of Catholicity, or the few Recusants who at the beck 
of a foreign prelate left their Mother Church and reared 
altar against altar ? 

The English Church never claimed to be Protestant, 
never once officially wrote the word. As the fogs of 
the eighteenth century clear away, as people become 
more familiar with the history of the Church and the 
principles of the Reformation, it will be looked upon as 
one of the marvels of history that we Anglicans should 
ever for one moment have imagined ourselves anything 
but Catholics; that we should ever, even in careless and 
casual conversation, have yielded the name, the privilege ^ 
and the honor of Catholicity to the Latin intruders, or 
allowed ourselves to be called by a misnomer borrowed 
from German sectarians. It is like a wealthy miser who 
persists in calling himself poor, till he comes to believe 
that he is a pauper. 

It should be remembered that William III., "the dull 



12. Bailey's Juris, and Miss, of the Aug. Epis., p. 68. 
IS. Id., p. 47, quoted from William of Malmsbnry. 



AUTHORITY. 



173 



usurper of Orange " (as Bishop Coxe calls him), being 
desirous to identify the Catholic Church of England with 
Dissenters and continental Protestants, sent a message to 
convocation in which he speaks of his " interest for the 
Protestant religion in general, and the Church of England in 
particular." Even this indirect association of our Catho- 
lic Church with Protestantism was not allowed to pass Con- 
vocation, and after a thorough discussion, " an address of 
thanks was presented to the King in which the word Pro- 
testant as applied to the English Church was omitted." 14 
The unchurchly King was angry and mortified, and showed 
liis unrighteous indignation by proroguing Convocation and 
not allowing it to sit again for ten years. 

The English Church in her authorized prayers says : 
" We pray for the good estate of the Catholic Church." 
[Query: Is this a prayer for Popery? ] Again : " That it 
may please Thee to rule and govern Thy Holy Church 
Universal." — Sanctam Ecclesiam tuam Catholicam. Thirteen 
times a year every Englishman is expected to make that 
grand and stately confession which begins : " Whosoever 
will be saved it is before all things necessary that he 
hold the Catholic faith," and which abounds in such expres- 
sions as " The Catholic Faith is this," and " We are for- 
bidden by the Catholic religion," and in the Coronation 
Service the Sovereign is invested with the ring as "the 
ensign of kingly dignity and of defence of the Catholic 
Faith." 

14. Hore's Eighteen Centuries, p. 448. It is worthy of note, just here, that 
the official title of the Romish Communion is not the "Catholic Church," but 
44 The Holy Roman Church," or "The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church." 
(See Creed of Pius IV.) Land left by will to the "Catholic Church" in England, 
has been awarded not to the Roman Schism in England, but to the English 
Church. (See Ch. Eel., Apr., 1885, p. 68. 



REASONS FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



Even we American Churchmen (though we took the 
civil title " Protestant Episcopal ") still claim to be and 
are that part of the Catholic Church which has lawful juris- 
diction in the United States, and we authoritatively pray 
that we may die "in the communion of the Catholic 
Church." 15 



15. The greatest mistake trie Church in the United States ever made was the 
gradual acceptance, as a civil title, of the name "Protestant Episcopal "'—which 
means (according to our missionaries who have labored to translate it into 
Chinese) " The Contradictory Bishop's Church ! " 

In the first place our Church is not protestant in the original ecclesiastical 
sense of the term, which is equivalent to Lutheran, having been conferred on 
German separatists on account of their protest against the Diet of Spires. 

In the second place, our Church is not protestant in the modern popular 
sense of the term, which means not Catholic. God forbid that we should ever 
cease to be Catholics. 

In the third place, our Church is not protestant in the strict technical sense, 
of protesting or remonstrating against the abuses of a superior authority, which, 
in spite of abuses, is nevertheless a lawful authority. We do not (strictly speak- 
ing) protest against Rome, for such protest would imply that Eome has authority 
over us, against some exercise of which we protest. But Eome has no authority 
over us; consequently we do not protest. We merely fall back on our ancient, 
inherent, co-ordinate Catholic independence. This was admirably set forth by Dr. 
Thrall, in the General Convention of 1883. 

We are protestant only in the general, loose, vague and vapid sense in which 
every organization is protestant against every other organization which in any- 
way differs from it — the same sense in which we (and all Christians) are protest- 
ant against Judaism, Mohammedanism, and tnitarianisni; the same sense in 
which the Church of Rome is protestant against us and against the Orthodox 
Catholics of the Orient: the same sense in which the word could be applied to 
any school of medicine or philosophy, any political party, any social club. Now 
in all seriousness and common sense, is it worth while to qualify the Catholic 
Church in the United States by such a title as that? — a title at best, meaningless : 
at worst, foully misleading; a title which our Mother Church in England refused 
to countenance ; which even the Church of Ireland (the least Catholic of all the 
branches of the Catholic Church) repudiates with scorn and indignation; which 
only one or two (and they the most insignificant) of all the legion of protestant 
Beets have incorporated into their legal designation. Who of us does not agree 
with Dr. Fulton, when he says: "I should be glad if the name 'Protestant' 
could be dropped from the title page of our Book of Common Prayer " ! (Am. Ch. 
Rev., Jan., 1885, p. 315.) 

As to the other adjective, Episcopal, while it is true, it is simple tautology. 
" Episcopal ! " Why, the word Catholic— nay, the very word Church connects 
and implies all that. One might as well say a vertebrate man, or a stellar star, 



AUTHORITY. 



175 



In the words of the late venerable Dr. Thomas W. Coit: 
"To prejudiced Protestants who ignorantly eschew the 
word Catholic as dangerous, it may be enough to say, it is 
ridiculous (not to use a more solemn word — blasphemous) 
to say in church, in God's presence, 1 1 believe in the Holy 
Catholic Church,' and to repudiate or dishonor the word 
in man's presence." (Early Hist. Note, p. 6.) 

"The separation," says Dr. Samuel Seabury (late Pro- 
fessor in the General Theological Seminary, New York), 
"was from the Court of Rome in respect to its claim of juris- 
diction in England, and not from the Church of Rome in 
respect to any points of faith or order that had been ruled 
by the Catholic Church. Leaving the Bishop of Rome to 
govern the Churches of Rome, and the Churches also of 

as an " Episcopal Church. " Moreover, the Church does not belong to the Bish- 
ops, but the Bishops to the Church. If we must call our Church "Episcopal" 
just because it has Bishops, why not call it Presbyterial because it has Presby- 
ters ? Presbyters are just as distinctive a mark of the Catholic Church — of the 
Catholic Church exclusively— as Bishops are, for no body can have Presbyters 
without having Bishops to make them. The fact of our having Presbyters differ- 
entiates us a3 widely from all protestant bodies as the fact of our having Bishops, 
for a Presbyter is a man ordained to the Christian Priesthood by a Bishop. 

Then, too, as one has said: "The term 'Protestant Episcopal' has never 
been formally adopted as a title for our Church. * * * The title stole in 
upon us like a thief in the night. * * * Who put it there [on the title-page] ? 
What printer, what private member of a committee, what unauthorized person ? 
In vain have I searched the records of those days to find that the Convention ever 
adopted the title-page to the Prayer Book. * * * It was never formally adopted 
as such by the Church here in her corporate capacity. The fact is, the question 
concerning a proper title for the Church never came up. The utmost that can be 
said is that the title has only had a mere quasi adoption."— {''•Failure of Protes- 
ta?/tfsra," pp. 25 and 27.) The report of the committee of the House of Bishops, 
at the Gen. Conv. of 1883 (signed by the Bishops of W. N. Y., Georgia, and Mich- 
igan), declares that the "name Protestant Episcopal was forced upon us by 
external pressure of circumstances." And the Bishop of Chicago says, in his 
Convention address, 1884 (See Ch. Eel., Aug., 1884, p. 429), that this title "was at 
no time deliberately selected and applied to herself by the Church in this 
country." 

Finally, the name P. E. is never used by intelligent Churchmen except in 



176 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



such other countries as deemed it for their benefit to con- 
tinue subject to his jurisdiction, the Church of England, 
under the protection of the State, resumed the responsi- 
bility of governing herself and her members agreeably to 
the word of God and Catholic tradition. No change was 
made which offended the consciences of her members. 
The Chureh remained Apostolic and Catholic, and gave to 
her clergy and children this golden Rule of Faith : 

£t Preachers shall, in the first place, be careful never to 
teach anything from the pulpit, to be religiously held and 
believed by the people, but what is agreeable to the doc- 
trine of the Old and New Testament, and collected out of 
that doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and ancient bishops.' 
(Decree of Convocation, 1571.) 

official documents. "American Church" is the usus loquendi; The Catholic 
Chuech en the United Statls or Ambbica would be more exact. 

Our present civil title hurts us more than any other legacy of the eighteenth 
century. The old proverb says: " Give a dog a bad name, and hang him." The 
poor fellow may be as faithful as "Fido," but his name ruins him. It is true 
our nickname (P. E.) does not touch the essence of our Catholicity; but it re- 
quires constant explanation, and it hinders the work of the Church, the educa- 
tion of our people, and our intercommunion with other parts of the Catholic 
Church which are justly suspicious of a Church "which owus so bad a name." 
VTe might call ourselves The Prayer-Bookers, or The Anti- Atheistic Ecclesias- 
tical Church Militant here upon Earth, as a civil designation. It would, of 
course, be disrespectful to cur Holy Maker; but we would none the less continue 
to be the Catholic Church in the United States of America. Is it not best to call 
her what she is ? The General Convention of 1SS3, from considerations of exped- 
iency, failed to adopt our rightful name. But as the Eev. J. A. Greaves, of Vir- 
ginia, says (see his "Vindication of the Eight of the Anglican Churches to the 
Use of the Zsame Catholic," p. 54): "If the question had been as to the right to 
use the title [Catholic], we may be quite sure that the whole body would 
have voted for it." Such Eight will not long have to wait on a timid and (after 
all) mistaken expediency. The day is coming— God hasten it— when our legisla- 
tors [a majority of the House of Bishops is said to be already in favor of it] will 
give our Church her rightful name, to which our present nom de <juerre will give 
place as "Snowdown's Knight*' to "Scotland's King,' 1 or as II Boudocaue to 
" Harown Alraschid : " and " P. E." will in the future be looked upon merely as 
the al as of our youthful dallyings, the nomen fictum of our protestant escapades. 
Our rightful name will then bear fruit to the glory of God. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE ATTITUDE OF DISSENT TOWARDS EPISCOPACY. 

"A self -formed Priesthood, and the Church cast forth 
To the chill mountain air." 

—Lyra Apostolica, p. 143. 

"It is required now, just as much as in the days of Christ's ministry on 
earth, that no man shall take the honor of the Christian Priesthood, but he whom 
Christ, as Head of the Church, hath chosen and ordained to that office."— Bishop 
Mcllvaine. 



7ERY different from the authoritative and Catholic 



V reformation of the English Church were the revolu- 
tionary Protestant reformations on the Continent, which 
broke altogether with the past and lost the divinely com- 
missioned ministry of the Church. Far be it from us, 
however, to condemn a movement which, though less suc- 
cessful, was perhaps as earnest and sincere, and, from the 
greater abuses of Rome on the continent, more imperatively 
necessary than our own reformation. The candid student 
of history, however, must admit that for the Lutherans 
and Calvinists to leave the corrupt and tyrannous papal 
Churches of Europe was one thing, but that for English 
Christians to behave in the same manner toward the 
already freed, purified, and comprehensive Catholic Church 
of England was another and a very different thing. 

The changing attitude of those who left the Historic 
Church, toward the Apostolic Ministry is, to say the least, 




I 



178 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 

remarkable and instructive, (a.) First they revered the 
Episcopate, longed to retain it, and when they found they 
had lost the Apostolic Succession, sought earnestly to 
recover it. It is well known how Luther and Melancthon 
believed in Episcopacy. Their confession of faith, 1 speak- 
ing of bishops, says : " The Churches ought necessarily, 
and jure divino to obey them." Melancthon wrote : " I 
would to God it lay in me to restore the government of 
bishops. For I see what manner of Church we shall have, 
the ecclesiastical polity being dissolved." Beza protested : 
u If there be any (which you shall hardly persuade me to 
believe) who reject the whole order of Episcopacy, God 
forbid that any man of sound mind should assent to the 
madness of such men." Calvin, in his commentary on 
Titus (I., 5), admits that there was no such thing as "the 
parity of the ministry." Again he says : " If the bishops 
so hold their dignity, that they refuse not to submit to 
Christ, no anathema is too great for those who do not 
regard such a hierarchy with reverence and the most 
implicit obedience." Says Blondel, a learned Presbyte- 
rian : " By all we have said to assert the rights of Presby- 
tery, we do not intend to invalidate the ancient and 
apostolical constitutions of Episcopal pre-eminence, but 
that wheresoever it has been put down or violated, it 
ought to be reverently restored." The tremendous testi- 
mony of Grotius was quoted above in Chapter XI. And 
there is something touching and pathetic in the reply of 
Dr. Bogerman, President of the " Synod of Dort," to the 
English visitors (sent over by King James I.) when they 
reminded him that the Reformed Christians of Holland 



1. Augsburg (part I., Art. 22), 



AUTHORITY. 



179 



had not retained the Episcopate. " It is not permitted 
us," said he, " to be so blessed" — "Nobis non licet esse tarn 
beatis." It is also well known that Calvin, Bullinger, and 
other Protestant leaders wrote to King Edward VI., in 
1549, with a view to securing the Episcopal succession 
from England. The letter fell into the hands of some 
Roman Catholics, who forged a haughty and contemptu- 
ous reply. 2 

Such testimony might be multiplied to any extent. 
Grotius, Blondel, Chamier, Du Moulin, Cassaubon, Beza, 
Bucer, Le Clero, Baxter, Doddridge, and many more, 
yielded to the unanswerable argument for the universality 
of Episcopacy in the early days, and used to place its 
origin either with the Apostles, or at least as far back as 
a. d. 150. And it has been shown that if Episcopacy pre- 
vailed then it must have prevailed from the beginning, for 
no such stupendous a revolution could have taken place 
within fifty years of St. John's death. 3 

2. See Kip's Double Witness, p. 79. 

3. This attitude of dissenters toward Episcopacy has been well described 
by Bowden, Mines, Kip and others in their well known books. 

"There is yet another historical presumption, exceedingly strong, against 
those who now slight the apostolic ministry and orders. The unbroken and 
unquestioning usage of fifteen hundred years is in itself much. For how could 
it possibly happen, as Hooker well asks, that all that time, if the existing episco- 
pacy were wrong, no one Church ever discovered the right order, or doubted 
the Tightness of the order which did exist ? But the presumption is strengthened 
still further when it is added that those who now deny episcopacy "did not begin 
by doing so, but were led by circumstances into the want of it, and then gradu- 
ally, and by a manifest afterthought, came to make a merit of their own defects, 
and to defend as right what at first they only endured as unavoidable. * * * 
The controversy about episcopacy, or about orders, was not that which either 
originated the Reformation, or even occasioned it, or by which men's minds were 
stirred to urge that Reformation forwards. It was a controversy which grew out 
of circumstances, and was taken up after a time in order to maintain a position 
which no reformed community had nought upon its own merit s."— u Haddan on 
Apostolical Succession, pp. 131, 13(5, quoted by Rev. Wm. A. Rich. 



180 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



(b.) Then came a period of blind self-vindication, when 
the Protestant organizations having (as a temporary ex- 
pedient) set up a non- Episcopal ministry, seemed bound to 
give it a sort of ex post facto justification and validity by 
boldly asserting that it was, forsooth, the primitive order, 
and that Episcopacy or prelacy (as they preferred to call 
it) was a corrupt and tyrannous usurpation. This as- 
sumption had to be backed by the most arbitrary exegesis 
of Holy Scripture, and the most amazing handling of the 
Fathers imaginable — it was indeed translating them c: by 
the hair of the head over to the side of Presbyterianism." 
This process reached its climax in the early part of this 
century, when Dr. Miller (for example) blindly and reck- 
lessly proclaimed that " for the first two hundred years after 
Christ " Episcopacy was unknown to the Church, but that 
" toward the close of the third century " — [Hear it, ye that 
have sat with me at the feet of St. Paul and St. John, 
Ignatius, Irenseus, Tertullian, Cyprian ! !] — " toward the 
close of the third century prelacy was gradually and insid- 
iously introduced." (!) 

Again he says : " We find no evidence whatever within 
the first four (!) centuries that the Christian Church con- 
sidered diocesan Episcopacy the Apostolic and primitive 
form. * * * It is not true that any one of the fathers 
within the first four centuries, does assert the Apostolic 
institution of prelacy." Dr. McLeod, of New York, even 
claimed that the sin of Episcopacy was so great that no 
bishop could be a minister of Christ, and that all ordina- 
tions by bishops were null and void. 

Those were days of ignorant, bitter and unreasoning 
hostility to the Church, when our foes cried : " Down with 



AUTHORITY. 



181 



it, down with it, even to the ground ! " I thank God 
there is more kindliness and candor, as well as more truth 
and light, in the ecclesiastical controversies of to-day. 

(c.) The extreme anti-historical, anti-catholic, anti- 
scriptural position of Dr. Miller and his school, has now 
given way to a sounder scholarship among Dissenters, and 
a better, though not yet perfect, appreciation of the over- 
whelming evidence on the side of primitive Episcopacy. 

Dr. Schaff, a scholarly Presbyterian divine, and a pro- 
found student of Church History, in speaking of the 
Angels of the Seven Churches, frankly remarks : " The 
impartial reader must allow that this phraseology of the 
Apocalypse already looks towards the idea of Episcopacy 
in its primitive form ; that is, to a monarchical concentra- 
tion of governmental power in one person, bearing a patri- 
archal relation to the congregation, and responsible in an 
eminent sense for the spiritual condition of the whole. 

"This view is confirmed by the fact that among the 
immediate disciples of John, we find at least one — Poly- 
carp- — who, according to the unanimous tradition of 
Irenseus (his own disciple, himself a bishop), of Tertullian, 
Eusebius, and Jerome, was, by Apostolical appointment, 
actually Bishop of Smyrna, one of the seven churches of 
the Apocalypse. 

" Add to this the statement of Clement of Alexandria, 
that John, after his return from Patmos, appointed bish- 
ops ; the epistles of Ignatius at the beginning of the second 
century, which already distinguished the bishop from the 
presbytery at the head of the congregation, and in which 
the three orders pyramidically culminated in a regular 
hierarchy ; * * * and we assuredly have much in 



182 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



favor of the hypothesis, so ingeniously and learnedly set 
forth of late by Dr. Rothe, that the germs of Episcopacy 
are to be found as early as the close of the first century, 
and particularly in the sphere of the later labors of St. 
John. * * * In addition to this, however, the Episco- 
pal system was simultaneously making its way also in 
other parts of the Church. * * * 

" If now we consider the fact, that in the second century 
the Episcopal system existed as an historical fact in the 
whole Church, East and West, and was unresistingly 
acknowledged, nay, universally regarded, as at least indi- 
rectly of divine appointment, we can hardly escape the 
conclusion that this form of government grew out of the 
circumstances and wants of the Church at the end of the 
Apostolic period, and could not have been so quickly and 
so generally introduced without the sanction, or at least 
the acquiescence of the surviving Apostles, especially of 
John who labored on the very threshold of the second 
century, and left behind him a number of venerable dis- 
ciples. At all events it needs a strong infusion of skepti- 
cism, or of traditional prejudice, to enable one in the face 
of these facts and witnesses to pronounce the Episcopal 
government of the ancient Church a sheer apostacy from 
the Apostolic form, and a radical revolution." 4 

Again Dr. Schaff says : " It is a matter of fact that the 
Episcopal form of government was universally established 
in the Eastern and Western Churches as early as the mid- 
dle of the second century." 



4. Schaff' s Apostolic Church, pp. 539-541, quoted in that new and most con- 
vincing little book, "Plain Footprints, or Divers Orders Traced in the Scrip- 
tures, " by-Rev. H. R. Timlow, p. 10. 



AUTHORITY. 



183 



Dr. Fisher, of New Haven, also says : "All candid 
scholars must concede that the Episcopal arrangement in 
the form described may be traced back to the verge of the 
Apostolic age, if not beyond." 

The concessions of Mosheim, Gieseler, Neander, and 
Hase, are scholarly and candid, and show that any fair 
view of antiquity compels the admission of the univer- 
sality of Episcopacy. Their testimony is too long to quote 
here, 5 so I give but a single sentence from Mosheim, and 
one from Hase. The former says : " The order of bishops 
could not have originated at a period considerably more 
recent than that which gave birth to Christianity itself." 
And Hase says : " The Episcopate was the divinely ap- 
pointed pillar which sustains the whole ecclesiastical 
fabric." 

AN IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION. 

If Christ appointed any ministry at all for His Church, 
it must be that ministry which, existing in the Early 
Church, has perpetuated itself through the ages. 

The only ministry which, as an historical fact, has so 
perpetuated itself, is the Episcopal ministry — it, and it 
alone, has organic connection with those to whom Christ 
gave the divine commission. 

Has that ministry no authority ? Has it no claims upon 
Christian men ? Let us reflect. 



5. See these and many other like witnesses in "Plain Footprints," chap. 1. 



CHAPTER, XX. 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND CONFIRMATION. 

"Veni Creator Spiritus, 
Mentes tuorum visita y 
Imple superna gratia 
Quae Tu creasti pectora." 

— Whitsun Hymn, by Gregory the Great. 

" Sapientia, intellectus, consilium, fortitude, scientia, pieias, timor, Domini" 

"Draw, Holy Ghost, Thy sevenfold veil 
Between ns and the fire of youth." 

—Keble's Christian Year. 

IN connection with the primitive order of bishops which 
the Anglican Church has retained in unbroken suc- 
cession, comes the consideration of an important and 
Sacramental rite which it belongs to bishops alone to 
administer, viz. : Confirmation. 

Confirmation is defined in the Church Cyclopaedia as 
" The imposition of the bishop's hands, whereby the gift 
of the Holy Ghost is given to the person confirmed ; the 
strengthening of the soul by the grace of the Spirit." It 
is an Apostolic Blessing given to those who have been 
baptized, conveying to them grace and spiritual strength 
from God the Holy Ghost, to fit them for the worthy 
receiving of the Blessed Sacrament and the daily living of 
the Christian life. It is the completion of Holy Baptism, 



AUTHORITY. 



185 



a sort of lay-ordination to that " royal priesthood which 
is the privilege of all believers. It was typified by the 
descent of the Holy Ghost upon our blessed Lord after His 
Baptism in the River Jordan. 2 It was implied in the 
words of St. Peter : " Be baptized every one of you, 
* * * and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." 3 
It seems to be alluded to in the beautiful Hebrew parallel- 
ism of St. Paul : " But ye are washed [i. e., baptized], but 
ye are sanctified [i. e., confirmed], but ye are justified in 
the name of the Lord Jesus [i. e., in Baptism], and by the 
Spirit of our God [i. e., in Confirmation]." 4 The seven- 
fold gift of the Holy Ghost is " the inward part or thing 
signified ; " the laying on of Apostolic hands is " the out- 
ward visible sign or form." It is variously called Con- 
firmation, or the strengthening, from the idea conveyed in 
Eph., iii., 16 ; the Seal, from Eph., i., 13, and iv., 30 ; the 
Chrism, from I. St. John, ii., 27 ; and the Laying-on-of- 
hands, from Heb., vi., 2, where it is associated with 
repentance, faith and Baptism, as being one of "the prin- 
ciples of the doctrine of Christ," the " Foundation " of the 
Christian life. 

That it was the custom of the Apostles themselves to 
confirm is clearly shown in the eighth chapter of the Acts. 
St,- Philip the Deacon went down to Samaria, preached 
the Gospel, and baptized many converts. As a deacon he 
could preach and baptize, but could no more confirm than 
he could ordain. What was to be done? St. Luke tells 
us: "Now when the Apostles, which were at Jerusalem, 
heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they 



1. I. St. Pet., ii., 9. 2. St. Matth., iii., 16. 3. Acts, ii., 38. 4. I. Cor., vi., 11. 



186 



REASON'S FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



sent unto them Peter and John ; who, when they were 
come down, prayed for them that they might receive the 
Holy Ghost ; (for as yet He was fallen upon none of them ; 
only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). 
Then laid they their hands on them, and they received 
the Holy Ghost." * * * " Through the laying on of 
the Apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given." 5 Unless 
Confirmation had been an important rite, one of "the 
principles of the doctrine of Christ," the Apostles would 
hardly have taken the trouble to send two of their most 
prominent bishops, SS. Peter and John, to administer the 
rite to the baptized converts of St. Philip. 

Nearly twenty years after this, St. Paul, passing through 
Ephesus, found there twelve men who had received the 
Baptism of St. John the Baptist, which was not Christian 
Baptism, not the " Washing of Regeneration," not the New 
Birth " of Water and the Spirit," but merely, as St. Paul 
showed them, a "Baptism of repentance." Then he 
preached Christ unto them, and they were Christened or 
received Christian Baptism. After that St. Paul "laid his 
hands upon them," and they received the Holy Ghost. 6 
In other words, they were sealed and received the earnest 
of the Spirit in their hearts (II. Cor., i. 22). 

These allusions to the Apostolic custom of Confirma- 
tion in the New Testament, are corroborated by the 
universal practice of the Church ever after. Baptism was 
held to be the initiation of a child (or an adult) into the 
Church ; but Baptism was invariably followed, either at 
once or after an interval, by the laying on of the bishop's 



5. Acts, viii., 14-18. 6. Acts, sax., 5-6. 



AUTHORITY. 187 



hands. In cathedral towns and in small dioceses, where 
the bishop himself could be present at all Christenings, 
whether of infants or adults, the Laying-on-of-hands ap- 
pears to have followed immediately after the Baptism, so 
that it came to be looked upon as almost a part of it. But 
where it was impossible for the bishop to be present at 
the Baptism, the Laying-on-of-hands was deferred until 
he could be present and perform the act in person " after 
the example of the Holy Apostles." Thus rose the system 
of regular Episcopal visitations in every parish, that all 
who were admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion 
• might be brought en rapport with the Chief Pastors of the 
Church, might receive the touch and the benediction of 
.an Apostle. All this may be gathered from a few passages 
from the Fathers. 

Tertullian (born a. d. 135), after speaking of Baptism, 
says : " Next to this the hand is laid upon us, calling 
upon and invoking the Holy Ghost through the Bless- 
ing." 7 St. Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage (bom about 
a. d. 200), says : " The custom has also descended to us 
that those who have been baptized be brought to the 
bishops of the Church, that by our prayer and by the 
Laying-on-of-hands, they may obtain the Holy Ghost, 
.and be consummated with the Seal of the iorc?." 8 St. Jer- 
ome (born a. d. 340) says: "It is the custom of our 
Churches that hands be laid on those who have been bap- 
tized and the Holy Ghost invoked over them." But lest 
any one should imagine that this Laying-on-of-hands was 
administered by the presbyters or deacons, he says explic- 



7. Tert. De Bap., vii., and viii. 8. Cyp. Epist., lxxiii., 8. 



1SS 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



itly : " This is the usage of cur Churches. The bishop 
goes forth and makes a tour in order to lay his hands and 
to invoke the Holy Ghost on those in the small towns 
who have been baptized by our priests and deacons." 

But why multiply instances? Let it suffice to have 
seen that St. Paul declares this Laying-on-of-hands to be 
one of the " principles of the doctrine of Christ/' that the 
allusions in the Acts show that it was the practice of the 
Apostles to lay their hands on the baptized. In addition 
to which the testimony above cited — of one who lived on 
the verge of the Apostolic age, of another in the next cen- 
tury, and of another in the century following — shows 
that it was the custom of the Catholic Church that this 
rite should be administered by the successors of the Apos- 
tles, with the imposition of hands, and with prayer for 
the gifts of the Holy Ghost. 

Confirmation was therefore Apostolic and universal, a 
note of the Church, a mark of primitive Catholicity. 
Said a learned Presbyterian divine, while working his way 
back into the historic Church : " I could not find in an- 
tiquity any beginning to this i Laying-on-of-hands,' but at 
the hands of the Apostles. I would trace it beyond the 
Apostles to the Jewish Synagogue, where I could find it 
even to this day intervening between Circumcision and the 
Passover.*' 

Considering the primitive character, the Apostolic au- 
thority, the scriptural evidence, the testimony of the 
Fathers, and the universal practice of the Church, to say 
nothing of the intrinsic grace and practical utility of the 
solemn act which would give to every child of the Church 
the paternal benediction of an Apostle — which binds the 



AUTHORITY. 



189 



font to the altar — it seems to me that no Church can 
claim to have continued in the fellowship of the Apostles, 
or to have retained all the marks of Catholicity, unless it 
has kept this " Venerable Blessing," 9 this Apostolic rite. 

The Holy Eastern Church with its eighty-five million 
members, has done so, albeit with a certain irregularity in 
the mode and form of administration. The Latin Church 
has done so, although the essence of the rite is somewhat 
obscured by various additional ceremonies. How is it 
with our own Church, the Catholic Church of the English- 
speaking race ? I answer, on this point as on all the essen- 
tials of the Catholic religion — " the principles of the doc- 
trine of Christ " — our Church has " continued steadfastly 
in the Fellowship of the Apostles." 

The venerable Bede tells us how St. Cuthbert, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, early in the eighth century, used to 
go all over his diocese, bountifully distributing counsels of 
salvation, u and laying his hands on the baptized that they 
might receive the grace of the Holy Ghost." There is 
still extant a beautiful Confirmation office which was 
used in our Church's grand old diocese of York some 
twelve hundred years ago. 

The prayer in our present Confirmation office, begin- 
ning : "Almighty and everlasting God Who hast vouch- 
safed to regenerate these Thy servants," has come down to 
us by the constant use of the Church from remote antiquity, 
probably from Apostolic times. It was used in Eng- 
land as far back as we have records of the services ; it was 

9. See a capital sermon with this title by the Kev. H. F. Hill, rector of 
Montpelier, Vt. It, with "Bishop Randall on Confirmation," and especially 
Bishop Lay's recent monograph on the subject may be used to great advantage in 
parish work. 



190 SEASONS FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



used by St. Ambrose in the ancient cathedral of Milan, in 
the year 375, more than fifteen centuries ago, and still 
earlier ; it is found also in the Confirmation offices of the 
Greek Church. 

In the Anglican Church since the sixteenth century some 
of the unnecessary accessories of Confirmation, such as the 
use of holy oil, the signing of the cross, and the blow on 
the cheek, which had gradually been added to the simple 
sacrament of the Laying-on-of-hands, have been generally 
laid aside, and the rite is administered among us in its> 
most primitive and Catholic form. 

I know not what words the Apostles used at the precise 
moment of the imposition of hands ; but they can hardly 
have used words much more appropriate than the sentence 
which our own Church puts in the mouth of the confirm- 
ing bishop : 

"Defend, Lord, this Thy child with Thy heavenly 
grace ; that he may continue Thine forever, and daily 
increase in Thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he come 
unto Thy everlasting kingdom. Amen." 10 

Indeed the mere witnessing of the sacred joyous service 
of Confirmation, in which the venerable Father in God. 
lays his hands on the children of the Church and blesses 
them in God's name, has been the means of bringing back 
many a wandering Christian to his own true home 

While there is nothing in the nature of Confirmation to 
prevent its being properly administered to a little child, 

10. The writer, however, begs to suggest to those who are interested in P. 
B. revision, whether the meaning of Confirmation would not be more clearly 
expressed if the first word, " Defend." were changed to confirm— Confirm, O 
Lord, this Thy child, etc. The meaning would really be the same for the defense 
alluded to comes only through being " strengthened [confirmed] with might by 
ITis Spirit in the inner man.'" Eph. s iii., 10 



AUTHORITY. 



191 



immediately after Baptism (as is the usual custom in the 
Greek Church), the whole Western Church — both Angli- 
can 11 and Roman 12 — has thought good to order that none 
shall be confirmed but such as understand the rudiments 
of Christian faith and duty, and are old enough to " renew 
the solemn promise and vow " that was made at their 
Baptism. No age is specified, but any ordinary child, 
properly brought up, ought to be desirous of Confirma- 
tion, and certainly sufficiently instructed, when from 
twelve to fifteen years of age, some much younger, 
others not so young. It is at least the design of the 
Church that children, made members thereof in infancy 
by Holy Baptism, shall be brought up as children, not as 
strangers ; and that as soon as they are come to years of 
discretion, they shall " be brought to the bishop to be con- 
firmed by him," and then be admitted to the Table of the 
Lord. This is not "joining the Church ; " that was done 
fully and once for all in Holy Baptism, wherein the person 
is " regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's 
Church." Dissenters, therefore who desire to conform to 
the Church, ought not to feel aggrieved when they are 
asked to be confirmed. The ordeal called "joining the 
church," to which they may have submitted when they 
became communicants of their respective denominations, 
is not Confirmation, nor indeed even analogous thereto. 
So that to thoughtful Christians who have been brought 
up in non-conformity to the historic Catholic Church, 
Confirmation, instead of being in any sense an obstacle, 

11. See third rubric after Catechism in P. B.. closing exhortation in Baptis- 
mal Office, and preface to Confirmation Office; also Canon 61 of the Eng. Ch. 

12. For R. C. usage, see Catechism of the Council of Trent, III., 7. " The 
time there marked out for Confirmation is between seven and twelve years of 
age." In the Anglican Church the usual age is from twelve to sixteen. 



192 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



ought to be looked upon as one of the chief inducements 
for returning to the Church, in order to obtain a grace and 
a blessing to which as baptized Christians they were justly 
entitled, but of which they have been deprived by the 
insufficiency of the bishopless systems of Protestant dissent. 

So keenly is " the conscious want of a connecting link 
between Baptism and Communion" felt by those who 
have lost the Apostolic rite of Confirmation, that most 
Continental Protectants (notably the great body of Luther- 
ans) have retained the outward form of Confirmation even 
though they have no ministry empowered to bestow it. 
" I sincerely wish," said Calvin, " that we retained this 
custom of the Laying-on-of-hands, which was practiced 
among the ancients." The Presbyterians and the Bap- 
tists in this country have officially declared their belief in 
it. 13 Had Confirmation, even as an empty form and with- 
out the Apostolic Ministry, been retained among our 
dissenting brethren, I am very sure that the heresy which 
denies Baptism to little children would never have made 
such havoc as it has in the religious life of this age. It is 
largely for want of Confirmation that Baptism has been 
transferred, with deplorable results, from infancy to adult 
age, in order to have some rite or ceremony of prepara- 
tion for first Communion. 

To all thoughtful Xon-conformists, as well as to Church- 
men, who have not fully grasped the meaning of Confir- 
mation, I beg to speak a serious and loving word — call it 
preaching, if you will : 

You believe in prayer ; you believe that God in answer 
to prayer gives special grace through His appointed ordi- 



13. See Randall on Confirmation. 



AUTHORITY. 



193 



nances. Now go back in thought to the first age of the 
Church. Suppose you are one of those Samaritans whom 
St. Philip has converted. You have repented of your sins ; 
you have professed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
you have been baptized into the Church. But St. Philip 
tells you that two of the chief pastors of the Church, 
the Apostles Peter and John, are coming down from Jeru- 
salem to give you their official benediction, to lay their 
hands on your head and to invoke the Holy Spirit upon 
you. With what eagerness would you seize the precious 
opportunity ! You would hasten to the place appointed; 
and as soon as you saw the benignant face of St. Peter or 
heard the loving voice of St. John, and realized that you 
were in the presence of one whom your Divine Master had 
commissioned as an Apostolic Bishop or Overseer of His 
Church, would you not rejoice to have him lay his hands 
on your head and bless you in God's name ? Well, that 
is Confirmation. The bishops who visit our parishes every 
year come with the same office and authority as Peter and 
John, when they made the first Episcopal visitation of 
Samaria. If you believe in God ; if you desire grace and 
help and strength, — come in faith, and as the good bishop 
after the example of his predecessors, the Holy Apostles, 
lays his hands on your head and blesses you in God's 
name, you will be blessed indeed. 

In Confirmation, then, as in the sacrament of Regenera- 
tion, the Catholic Faith, and Holy Orders, the Anglican 
Church has continued steadfastly; and it is permitted us 
to see another golden strand in the cord which binds our 
Church to the Catholic Church of the Apostles, the Church 
which Christ founded on the Rock. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD. 

" And then— as when the doors were shut, 
With Jesus left alone — 
The faithful sup with Christ, and He 
In breaking bread is known." 

^Bishop Coze, Christian Ballads. 

IN the history of eternity there has been but <rae true 
sacrifice — that of the Son of God Who made u by His 
one oblation of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and 
sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins 
of the whole world." This, the so-called sacrifices of the 
Patriarchal and Jewish dispensations foreshadowed ; to it 
they pointed ; from it they derived whatever of meaning, 
virtue, grace they possessed. 

In like manner, our great High Priest, at the offering 
up of Himself, "did institute, and in His holy Gospel 
command us to continue a perpetual memory of that His 
precious death and sacrifice." The Eucharist, so far as its 
sacrificial character is concerned, differs from the sacrifices 
of the elder dispensation chiefly in point of time. They 
prefigured ; it commemorates. They were a type ; it is a 
memorial. They were the shadow on the dial before the 
hour of noon ; it the shadow on the dial after the sun has 
past the meridian. 



AUTHORITY. 



195 



Christ bade His Church : " Do this for My memorial." 1 
And the Church has done it, not as a renewing of Christ's 
sacrifice, but as a commemoration of it, a pleading of it 
before the Father, a " showing of the Lord's death till He 
come." 2 And so from St. Paul 3 and St. Ignatius, 4 nay, 
even from our Lord Himself, 5 to the American Prayer 
Book, 6 the Table of the Lord has been authoritatively (as 
it is almost always popularly) called the altar, because 
on it is celebrated the sacrificial memorial of the one great 
Sacrifice. 

Scholarly readers will recall the eloquent passage in 
Origen's Second Homily, in which he speaks of seeing 
"Churches built, and Altars not sprinkled with the 
blood of flocks, but consecrated by the precious blood 
of Christ." Also the clear statement of Athanasius, in 
his Disputation against Arius, in the Council of Nicsea, in 
which he says that Christ " sent forth the Apostles, fur- 
nishing a Table, that is, the Holy Altar, and on it 
heavenly and immortal Bread." 

1. Eis ten emen anamnesin. St. Luke, xxii., 19. 2. I. Cor., xi., 26. 

3. We have an altar, etc. Heb., xiii., 10; cf. also I. Cor., x., 18, J 9, 20, 21. 

4 41 St. Ignatius, who lived in the Apostolic age itself, calls the Lord's Table 
the "Altar." See Epist. to the Philadelphians, Chap. iv. Other early fathers 
frequently allude to the Christian altar." Blunt, An. P. B., p. 158. 

5. St. Matth., v., 23 and 24. See Sadler's commentary on this passage: "If 
the Sermon on the Mount is to be for the guidance of the Church in all time, 
then there must be in God's Church, at all times, something which can properly 
be called an 4 altar,'" etc. 

6. See Office of Institution^ Am. P. B , 4th rubric, et passim. Also the Eng- 
lish Coronation Service and the English Canons. It is fair, however, to say that 
the English Coronation Service was never presented to Convocation, and has 
thus never received the sanction of the Church. It is a purely State service. It 
is important to remember this, as (while it uses the word Catholic) it also uses 
the word Protestant in the King' s oath. William III. introduced the word as a slap 
on the face of the Church for refusing to sanction it. Of course, it is inter 
preted to mean simply not Romish. 



196 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



This aspect of the Holy Eucharist has been by some 
distorted, and by others entirely ignored. Judged by the 
usage of the early Church, the Romanists have dispropor- 
tionately exaggerated it, and the Protestant Dissenters 
have lost sight of it altogether — giving not even a minimum 
of recognition to the divine system of priest, altar, sacri- 
fice. 7 Between these two extremes, the Anglo-Catholic 
Church has maintained a safe, primitive, and practical 
medium. Like the early Church, she gives due recogni- 
tion to the sacrificial idea by requiring (as she has always 
done) that no one but a lawfully ordained Priest (sacerdos) 
shall present the " Pure Offering " upon the Holy Table, 
consecrate the Eucharist, and pray the Father to " accept 
this our Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. " The ideal 
expression of the Anglican view (which, as has been said, 
is the primitive) is to be found in the Scottish and Amer- 
ican Liturgies, especially in that meaningful passage: 
" We, Thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here 
before Thy Divine Majesty, with these Thy holy gifts 
which we now offer unto Thee, the Memorial Thy Son 
hath commanded us to make." 

On the other hand, our Church leaves no room for the 
undue and disproportionate magnifying of this aspect of 
the Sacrament of the Altar. (See Article xxxi.) 

The Eucharist, however, according to the teaching of 
Christ and St. Paul, and according to the usage of the 
Early Church, as apparent in the primitive Liturgies and 
the writings of the Fathers, was not only a memorial of 
Christ's sacrifice, but also a Holy Communion or sacra- 
mental means of communicating to us the highest of all 



7. See Bp. Andrewes', vol. v., p. 66, on "Altar, Priest," etc. 



AUTHORITY. 



197 



God's gifts of grace, uniting us to Him and to one another 
in the blessed " Communion of Saints." As St. Paul says : 
u The Cup of Blessing which we bless, is it not the Com- 
munion of the Blood of Christ? The Bread which we 
break, is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ ? 
For we being many are one bread and one body ; for we 
are all partakers of that one Bread." 8 The gift conveyed 
is nothing less than the Body and Blood of Incarnate God, 
whereby we are made partakers of Him — as St. Peter says, 
u partakers of the divine nature." 

Look at the Bible-history of the Holy Communion. 
Our blessed Lord in His memorable discourse at Caper- 
naum (St. John, vi.), said : " I am the living Bread which 
came down from heaven ; if any man eat of this Bread, 
he shall live forever ; and the Bread which I shall give is 
my flesh which I will give for the life of the world." 

No wonder that the Jews strove among themselves, say- 
ing, " How can this man give us His flesh to eat? " For 
a mere man to utter these words, would have been the 
height of madness, and the Jews would have been right. 
But it was Incarnate God Who spake ; He meant what 
He said, and therefore He repeated His assertion only 
more emphatically: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, except 
ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye 
have no life in you. Whoso eateth My Flesh, and drinketh 
My Blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at 
the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My 
Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and 
drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in Him. He 
that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." 



8. I. Cor., x , 16 and 17. 



198 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



These words were so strange, so unlike the words of any- 
one else, that many of our Lord's disciples said: "This 
is a hard saying, who can hear it? " And many of them 
from that time went back and walked no more with Him. 
Nevertheless He would not retract His words, those " words 
of eternal life." 

Doubtless the faithful ones who still clung to Him were 
troubled, and cast in their minds what He might mean ; 
but they had not long to wait, For on the night on which 
He was betrayed, " Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and 
brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said : " 4 Take, 
eat ; THIS IS MY BODY.' And He took the cup and 
gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 1 Drink ye all of 
it; for THIS IS MY BLOOD.'" 9 

He said we must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood ■ 
and then to show us what He meant, He instituted the 
Holy Communion, saying : u This is My Body," " This is 
My Blood." St. Paul also teaches that the unworthy 
receiver of the Bread and Wine, is "guilty of the Body 
and Blood of the Lord*" 10 His sin consists in " not discern- 
ing the Lord's Bod3v' 

St. Ignatius speaks of certain heretics, who " confess not 
the Eucharist to be the Flesh of our Saviour Christ." 11 

Justin Martyr, who gives us the first graphic account 
of the administration of the Holy Eucharist, says : " We 
do not receive these elements as common bread and com- 
mon drink, but we have been taught that the food which 
has been eucharistically blessed is the Flesh and Blood of 
that same Incarnate Jesus." 12 Similar testimony might 



9. St. Matthew, xxvi., 26-28. 10. I. Cor., xi., 27. 11. Ad. Smyr., Ch. vii. 
12. 1. Apol., LXVI. 



AUTHORITY. 



199 



be brought forward to any extent showing that in the Holy 
Communion the "Body and Blood of Christ are (as our arti- 
cle says) " given, taken, and eaten." 

On the other hand, our blessed Lord and St. Paul taught, 
and the Early Church believed, that the bread and wine, 
although after Consecration properly called the Body and 
Blood of Christ, nevertheless are still bread and wine, hav- 
ing no change of substance. Christ calls the consecrated 
wine His Blood, but He also calls it the " fruit of the 
Vine." 13 St. Paul calls the consecrated bread not only the 
Body of Christ, but still bread, " for," says he, " we are all 
partakers of that one bread." 14 And again "As often as ye 
do eat this bread;" and " Whosoever shall eat this bread ; " 
and "So let him eat of this bread." 15 The Fathers also 
assert the same. Says St. Irenseus : " The bread from 
the earth, receiving the invocation of God, is no longer 
common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two things 
— an earthly, and a heavenly." 16 St. Chrysostom says 
that the bread " when once Divine Grace has, through the 
intervention of the priest, sanctified it, is worthy to be 
called the Lord's Body, although the nature of bread 
remains" 17 Theodoret says that Christ " honored the sym- 
bols which are seen with the title of bread and wine, not 
changing their nature, but adding grace to the nature ." 18 And 
Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, a. d. 492, says : " The grace 
of the Body and Blood of Christ which we receive is a 
Divine thing, wherefore also we are by the same made par- 



13. St. Mark, xiv., 25. 14. I. Cor., x., 17. 15. I. Cor., xi., 26-28. 16. Adv. 
Hasr., IV., 18, 5. 17. Epis. ad Caes., Opp. T., III., p. 744, Ed. Ben. 18. T., IV., 
26, Ed. Sen. 



200 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



takers of the Divine nature ; and yet the substance and 
nature of bread and wine ceaseth not to be" 19 

Now, if we care anything for the teaching of Christ and 
of St. Paul, and anything for the belief of the Catholic 
Church in its purest days, we must admit two things: 
First, that the bread and wine are in some true sense the 
Body and Blood of Christ ; and secondly, that they are still 
bread and wine. 

It is altogether unnecessary to assume that there is any 
contradiction or inconsistency in this twofold truth. From 
Augustine, and even Irenseus, the Church has had a sim- 
ple and comprehensive doctrine which saves both sides of 
the truth, viz., that so well expressed in our Catechism* 
that a Sacrament has two parts, the " outward visible sign, 
and the inward spiritual grace." The Bible itself demands 
this definition. 

Such was the belief of the early Church ; and our Lit- 
urgy, Catechism, Articles and Homilies show that such is 
the doctrine of the Anglican Church to-day. " What," 
says the English Church Catechism, " is the outward part or 
sign of the Lord's Supper ? Bread and Wine, which the 
Lord hath commanded to be received. What is the in- 
ward part or thing signified? The Body and Blood of 
Christ, which are verily and in deed taken and eaten by 
the faithful in the Lord's Supper." 

Diverging from this, the Catholic Doctrine of the Holy 
Eucharist are two errors — both of which overthrow the 
very nature of a Sacrament, viz., (a) The doctrine of the 
real absence of the Bread and Wine; and (b) The doctrine 
of the real absence of the Body and Blood of Christ — both 



19. De duab. Christi naturis. The passage is quoted in Sadler's Ch. Doct. 
and Bib. Truth (p. 137), a book \yhich every intelligent layman ought to read 
and study. 



AUTHORITY. 



201 



of which are equally opposed to the Church's Scriptural 
and Catholic Doctrine of the Real Presence, the substantial 
reality, of both parts of the Sacrament. 

L The first of these errors is called Transubstantiation 
It denies the outward visible sign by declaring that aftei 
Consecration there is no bread and no wine at all, but only 
the actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. And 
yet that Jesus Christ, Incarnate God, thus present, deludes 
His worshippers by the Protean trick of resembling a piece 
of bread and a cup of wine — albeit no bread and wine are 
there, for the whole substance of the bread and wine has 
ceased to be, having been converted into the substance of 
the Body and Blood of Christ, into " Christ whole and 
entire," 20 but the " accidents " of the bread and wine, hav- 
ing supplanted the proper accidents of Christ's human 
Body remain to mock us. 

This doctrine of Transubstantiation was foreshadowed 
by Paschasius Radbertus, in 831, but ably opposed by Ra- 
banus Maurus and Bertram of Corbie, while in the tenth 
century the " Paschal Homily " of our own Aelfric, Arch- 
bishop of York, shows that the error had not then gained 
a footing in the Church of England. Lanfranc, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, in 1070, was the first to teach Tran- 
substantiation in our Church ; and in 1215, this rational- 
istic hypothesis, which u is repugnant to the plain words 
of the Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament^ 

20. See Council of Trent, Sess. XIII., Ch. 4. See also Catechism of Co. of 
Trent, Pt. II., C. IV., q. XXXI., which teaches in addition that in this Sacrament 
are contained 44 whatever appertains to the true nature of a body, such as bones 
and nerves." Canon III. of Sess. XIII., also teaches that 14 the whole Christ is 
contained under each species.'" From this premise it was easy to deduce the 
practical heresy of Communion under one species. See Sess. XXI., Canons I- 
and II. 



202 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



and hath given occasion to many superstitions," was de- 
clared an article of the Faith (!) by the Fourth Lateran 
Council. 

It must of course be acknowledged that Transubstanti- 
ation was for several centuries taught by the clergy of our 
own Church in England, though it is probable that all the 
while the general average of English Churchmen, guileless 
of Aristotelian metaphysics and scholastic subtilties, held 
substantially the same view of the nature of the Blessed 
Sacrament that they hold to-day. It is needless to say 
that one important part of the English Reformation was 
the restoring of the primitive, consistent, scriptural doc- 
trine of the two parts of the Sacrament, and the Real Pres- 
ence of both. 

Out of the theory of Transubstantiation there gradually 
arose in western Christendom a most shocking and impi- 
ous abuse, the withholding of the chalice from all but the 
Celebrant himself. This half-Communion or Communion 
under one kind is nothing less than the robbing of Christ's 
people of the Blood of Christ, and a sacrilegious mutila- 
tion of the Blessed Sacrament. 

Christ had said, " Except ye drink the Blood of the Son 
of Man ye have no life in yon ; " and when He gave the 
consecrated wine (as if guarding against this very abuse) 
He said: " Drink all ye of it." The teaching of St. Paul 
is equally conclusive : u So let him eat of that bread, and 
drink of that cup." The Catholic Church throughout the 
world administered under both kinds — the Liturgies and 
all the Fathers testify to this. Bishops of Rome (and our 
Roman Catholic brethren would have us believe them all 
infallible !), notably Leo the Great and Gelasius I., declared 



AUTHORITY. 



203 



this half-Communion a heresy, and ordered those who 
xefused the chalice to be excommunicated. 21 As late as 
1095 the Council of Clermont, under the presidency of 
Urban II., Bishop of Rome, decreed that " no one shall 
-communicate at the altar, without receiving the Body and 
the Blood separately and alike, unless by urgent necessity 
and for caution." 22 The mutilation of the Sacrament 
began about the twelfth century, 23 though in the thir- 
teenth, St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the primitive prac- 
tice (Communion in both kinds) as lingering in some 
Churches. 24 It did not become general in our own Church 
till after the Council of Constance (1415), which decreed it ; 
it was never willingly acquiesced in by our laity, and 
sometimes the clergy used to administer a chalice of un- 
wnsecrated wine (!) for the sake of appearances and to 
pacify the people. The sacrilege was of short duration in 
our Church, for the chalice was unanimously restored by 
Convocation, December 2, 1547 ; and with the exception 
of the four years of Eomanist reaction under Queen Mary, 
the Sacrament of the Altar has ever since been adminis- 
tered to our people in its integrity, as Christ appointed. 

II. The second great error which overthrows the nature 
of a Sacrament is commonly called Zwinglianism. 

It is the doctrine of the real absence, not of the bread 



21. See Leo Horn. XLL, and Gela&ius ap Oratiam de consecraU quoted in 
Littledale's Plain Reasons, xxxiii., p. 83. Also "England versus Rome," by H. 
B. Swete, M. A., p. 160. 

22. See Brown on the Articles, p. 733. 

23. Cardinal Bona admits this. See Bingham II., 808. 

24. In S. Joann., VI. and VII. The Greek Church, of course, has never 
refused to the laity the Sacrament of the Blood of Christ. 



204 



REASOXS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



and wine, but of the Body and Blood of Christ. It reads a 
negative into God's most solemn affirmation. It transub- 
stantiates our Lord's declaration, " This IS My Body,^ 
into This is NOT My Body. As Transubstantiation ignores 
the outward visible sign, so Zwinglianism refuses to " dis- 
cern " the inward part or thing signified, which, St. Paul 
teaches us, is the essence of the unworthy reception of the 
Sacrament. The Catholic doctrine accepts both. Just as- 
touching the Incarnation, Unitarians deny that Christ is 
God, the Docetse deny that He is Man. But He is both, 
and the Catholic Church adores Him, God and Man, the 
blessed Theanthropos. 

According to Zwinglianism, the Holy Communion is a 
bare, empty sign, and as such may be administered with- 
out priest, or altar, or divine Liturgy ; and among Ameri- 
can Dissenters is now, with fanatic presumption, usually 
administered without wine ; — vapid, outlandish, unauthor- 
ized compounds being substituted. 

Zwinglianism has, of course, never received any ecclesi- 
astical sanction in the Anglo-Catholic Church, either before 
or since the sixteenth century. Our doctrinal and liturgi- 
cal standards are as careful, on the one hand, to guard 
against it, as, on the other hand, to guard against Transub- 
stantiation; allowing, however, between these two extremes 
a large and charitable measure of Christian liberty. 

Our Church, therefore, continues steadfastly in "The 
Breaking of the Bread." We Catholics prize and love the 
outward symbols which remind our dissenting brother of 
the broken Body and the out-poured Blood ; while, with 
our Roman brother, we reverence and kl discern the Lord's 
Body." receiving that "spiritual food and sustenance to 



AUTHORITY. 



205 



our great and endless comfort," holding each side of the 
truth without disparagement of the other. 

" Whene'er I seek the Holy Altar's rail, 

And kneel to take the grace there offered me, 

It is no time to task my reason frail, 
To try Christ's words, and search how they may be; 

Enough, I eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, 

More is not told— to ask it is not good. 

I will not say, with these, (25) that bread and wine 

Have vanished at the consecration prayer; 
Far less, with those, (26) deny that aught divine 

And of immortal seed is hidden there. 
Hence, disputants ! The din, which ye admire, 
Keeps but ill measure with the Church's choir." 



25. Romanists. 26. Zwinglians. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



"the prayers." 

44 They continued steadfastly in the prayers." (A mark of the Early Church.> 
—Acts, ii., 42. 

44 Take with you words and turn to the Lord."— Hosea, xiv., 2. 

44 If all the liturgies of all ancient Churches throughout the world be com^ 
pared amongst themselves, it may be easily perceived that they had all one 
original mould."— The Judicious Hooker. 

TO some it may be a surprise to be told that liturgical 
worship is a mark of the early Church, and hence a 
note of Catholicity, but it is assuredly so. I would not 
say that a body of Christians having the Faith, the Minis- 
try, and the Sacraments, would be necessarily un-Churched 
if they were to give up the Liturgy (as for a time the 
Catholic Church of Scotland did, with results melancholy 
and disastrous), but such a Church would be incomplete, 
not fully Catholic, and sure to deteriorate. Indeed, I be- 
lieve a purely human organization with a Catholic Liturgy 
(like the Irvingites) is more likely to keep the Faith, than 
a Church without the Liturgy would be. It behooves us, 
therefore, (a) to understand and appreciate the fact that 
the Early Church had its " Divine Liturgy,'' as well as its 
Faith, Ministry, and Sacraments ; and (b) to realize that 
our own Church, the Catholic Church of the English 
speaking race, has preserved, in its essential integrity, 



AUTHORITY. 



207 



Catholic worship, as well as those other marks of the prim- 
itive Church in which we have already seen her historic 
continuity. 

Of all the kinds of authorized public worship, among 
Jews and among Christians, no such thing was ever 
known, until recent times, as a non-liturgical service. 
The usual custom of Anglo-American Dissenters in dele- 
gating their worship to the extemporaneous devotion of a 
single leader, would have appeared as absurd to a Jew, or 
to an ancient Catholic Churchman, as it does to-day to 
those of us who have learned what " Common Prayer " 
really is, who have been taught " not to bring unbeaten 
oil into the Sanctuary." 

The Tabernacle and Temple service, which was ordained 
by God, was absolutely liturgical. The worship of the 
synagogue, if not of Divine ordering through Ezra, had, at 
least, Divine sanction, and was approved and devoutly 
participated in by the Son of God during His earthly life.. 
It also was absolutely liturgical. 

Fragments of the Mosaic ritual are given us in the Old 
Testament, and the whole in the writings of the Rabbis. 
Thus in Numbers, vi., 24-26, we have the divinely ordered 
form of priestly Benediction : " In this wise ye shall bless 
the children of Israel : The Lord bless thee and keep 
thee ; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be 
gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up His countenance 
upon thee, and give thee peace. " 1 In Deuteronomy are 
given the liturgical forms to be used by the people in 
making the offering of first fruits, 2 and of the tithes of the 



1. Our Church retains this ancient blessing in the Visitation Office 

2. Deut., xxvi., 5-11, and 12-15. 



20$ REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



third year, and the form used by the elders of a city in 
which murder had been committed. 3 The Psalms also 
were nothing less than a divinely inspired book of devo- 
tions, and were regularly chanted or intoned by the vested 
priests and white-robed choristers in the temple. When 
Hezekiah remodeled the Jewish worship, we read that he 
"and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises 
unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the 
seer ; and they sang praises with gladness, and bowed 
their heads and worshipped." 4 

We learn from the Talmud the whole arrangement of 
the services in connection with the sacrifices, the sabbaths, 
and the holy days. Accurate translations may be found 
in Lightfoot's Temple Sendee. The Jewish ritual also fur- 
nished forms for all special occasions — circumcisions, mar- 
riages, burials and the like. And we have in minute de- 
tail the forms of worship used at the Passover, used there- 
fore by our Lord at the " Last Supper," and constituting 
the norm of the Christian Liturgy or Order for the Admin- 
istration af the Holy Communion. 

In opposition to all this, Dissenters often reply : 0, 
Christian worship is not based on the Temple Service but 
on that of the synagogue ! — which, they assume, was very 
much of the nature of an extemporaneous " prayer-meet- 
ing." Let us see. One has but to enter a synagogue to-day 
in order to see that the service which the Jews have kept up 
for more than two thousand years is as distinctively litur- 
gical as that of any part of the Catholic Church. Indeed 
a stranger happening into a synagogue might almost think 
that the service of Morning or Evening Prayer was that of 



3. Id., xxi., 7. 4. II. Chron., xxix., 30. 



AUTHORITY. 



209 



a somewhat ritualistic congregation of Churchmen. The 
reading of Scripture lessons according to The Calendar, the 
chanting of Psalms, the intoning of beautiful prayers, 
especially the eighteen 5 collects which Ezra is said to have 
composed at the time of the return from the captivity 3 and 
which were certainly used in -the time of Christ, bear as 
little resemblance to the modern ;< prayer-meetings," tc ex- 
perience-meetings," " gospel-temperance-rneetings," et id 
genus omne, as does the high Celebration at St. Paul's cathe- 
dral to the " love-feast " of a u camp-meeting." A graphic 
description of the synagogue services is accessible to all in 
Geikie's Life of Christ, vol. L, chap, xiii.; in Prideaux' 
Connection, part L, book vi., p. 375, and in many other 
works. 

Does it ever occur to the advocates of bald extempora- 
neous services how unnatural is the supposition that the 
Apostles, trained to liturgical worship in every detail of 
religious service, should have wrought a revolution in the 
very idea of worship, inconceivable to the oriental mind, 
and which would have appeared as irreverent and distaste- 
ful to them, as would the total abolition of the Prayer Book 
to devout Anglicans to-day ? Our Saviour certainly never 
uttered one word against the established forms of Jewish 
worship in which He Himself regularly and devoutly par- 
ticipated. St. John Baptist taught his disciples to pray ; 6 
and Christ gave His Apostles the Lord's Prayer, which the 
Church has ever since universally employed in public and 
in private worship. It is worthy of note also that every 



5. A 19th collect was added early in the Christian era, praying against 
Christians, 

6. St. Luke, xi., 1. 



210 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



petition in this prayer is to be found in the Jewish ser- 
vices. 7 In His agony in the garden, our Saviour used the 
same words in prayer three times ; and when He, the Son 
of God, was dying upon the Cross, in His closing words ta 
His Father (as one has said) " He used that golden form 
of prayer which David as His prototype, composed," u My 
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Ps. xxii.) 
and, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." (Ps.xxxi: 5)- 

The Church under the guidance of the Apostles soon, 
shaped to itself, by adaptation and by composition, a litur- 
gical service. In Acts iv., we have a picture of the 
Christian assembly in Jerusalem, as " they lifted up their 
voices to God with one accord," in a beautiful prayer 
which breathes the spirit of the early Church, a sort of 
Christian psalm, carefully composed according to the rules 
of Hebrew Parallelism, and evidently said or sung in con- 
cert. The Colossians were bidden to teach and admonish 
one another " in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs " 8 
which certainly could not have been extempore. The 
only early instance of unpremeditated and irregular wor- 
ship (if worship it may be called,) is the abuse which ex- 
isted for a time in the troublesome and self-willed congre- 
gation of Corinth, and to the rectification of which St. 
Paul so strenuously exerted himself. 9 His closing injunc- 
tion in this connection may well be the Church's motto in 
all ages : " Let all things be done decently and in order." 

The Liturgy, in the strict sense of the word, means the 
service used in celebrating the Holy Eucharist. It admits 
of no doubt that our Saviour, at the Last Supper, followed 

7. See Lightfoot on St. Matt., vi., 9-13, and Home's Incrod. to Scrip., V. iii.» 
p. 296. 

8. Col., iii., 16. 9. See I. Cor., xiv., especially vs. 26 



AUTHORITY. 



211 



the usual ritual of the Passover, inserting at the most 
appropriate places the Eucharistic blessing of the bread 
and wine, and the distribution of the consecrated Ele- 
ments. It is, moreover, reasonable to suppose that He 
gave the Apostles directions as to the way in which they 
were to " do this." Be that as it may, they certainly 
could never have celebrated that Holy Communion with- 
out recalling and reproducing the outline of the Paschal 
service which the Master had used. His example was 
command enough, even if He did not explicitly order 
them to follow it ; and as a matter of fact they did follow 
it. Wherever they went they carried with them the same 
outline of the Liturgy, and that, too, based on the Paschal 
Sacrifice. Although it was not generally (if at all) commit- 
ted to writing till in the second century, yet it retained all 
its parts, and had only verbal differences in the most 
widely severed portions of the Church. 

In the great centers like Jerusalem, Ephesus, Rome and 
Alexandria, the Liturgies used bore the impress of Apos- 
tolic individuality, while still keeping to the general form 
of Catholic unity. Thus arose four great types of the 
primitive Liturgy, called, respectively : (a) The Liturgy of 
St. James, used in Jerusalem (and, in a slightly modified 
form, in Antioch, known as the Antiochian, Clementine or 
Apostolic Liturgy); (6) the Liturgy of St. John, used in 
Ephesus, Gaul, Spain, and Britain ; (c) the Liturgy of St. 
Peter, used at Rome ; and (d) the Liturgy of St. Mark, 
used at Alexandria. 10 

10. These four Liturgies are the basis of all modern Liturgies. That of St. 
James is still used in the East, and is the basis of the Grseco-Russian service; 
that of St. John is the basis of the Anglican, and also of the old Gallican and 
Mozarabic ; that of St. Peter, of the modern Roman use ; that of St. Mark, of the 
Coptic rite. 



212 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



These all have twelve parts or divisions in common. 
The order in which these parts occur is not always the 
same ; the substance of each is the same, and even the 
verbal expression, though not identical, is so similar as to 
demonstrate a common origin. They differ less from 
each other than the four great races of men whom God 
" hath made of one blood for to dwell on all the face of 
the earth," 11 and who may all justly claim a common 
origin from Noah, by whose sons " was the whole earth 
overspread." 12 After Scripture lessons and a sermon with 
which the service usually began, the twelve parts common 
to all ancient liturgies are as follows : 
I. The Kiss of Peace. 
II. Lift up your hearts. 

III. The Tersanctus. 

IV. Commemoration of the Institution. 
V. The Oblation. 

VI. The Invocation. 
(The three last form the Prayer of Consecration, or 
Canon of the Mass.) 

VII. Prayer for the living. 
VIII. Prayer for the faithful departed. 
IX. The Lord's Prayer. 
X. Union of the consecrated Elements, 
XL The Communion. 
XII . Thanksgiving . 

This is the order of parts according to the Liturgy of St. 

James. 13 

11. Acts, xvii., 26. 12. Gen., ix., 19. 

13. For the arrangement of the other Liturgies, see Blunt's Annot. P. B., p. 
148; Cutt's Turning Points in Gen. Ch. Hist., p. 142, and Kip's Double Witness, 
p. 105. See also, for some specimens, Sadler's Ch. Doct. and Bible Truth, p. 204. 



AUTHORITY. 



213 



The four varieties of the early Liturgy are at least as 
much alike as the four Gospels, which have so much in 
common that we are sure they are each based on the one 
oral Gospel which the Apostles taught for twenty years 
before they wrote down the first word. 

The Apostolic Liturgy is, in its substance, older than 
the written Gospels and Epistles. St. Paul himself several 
times quotes from liturgical forms used in the Early 
Church. This fact is clearly shown in Neale's Essays on 
Liturgiology (pp. 411-474), is often alluded to by Cony- 
beare and Howson, and is admirably set forth by a lay- 
man of our own Church in a most instructive monograph 
on the Divine Liturgy. 14 

The worship of the early Church was liturgical, musical, 
reverent, symbolic, and, as soon as circumstances allowed, 
ornate. When the younger Pliny was Governor of 
Bithynia, a. d. 112, he wrote a letter to the Emperor 
Trajan, in which he gives us our first post-Apostolic 
glimpse of Christian worship. The Christians, says he, 
" are accustomed, on a stated day, to meet before daylight, 
and to say antiphonally a hymn to Christ {dicere secum 
invicem carmen Christo'] as to God, and to bind themselves 
by a Sacrament [or oath, Latin Sacramentum~\ not to com- 
mit any wickedness/' 

The next description of Christian worship is given by 
Justin Martyr before a. d. 140 : 

"Upon the day called Sunday we have an assembly of 
all who live in the towns or in the country, who meet in 

14. I refer, of course, to " The Divine Liturgy in the Book of Common 
Prayer," by Geo. W. Hunter, pub. by James McCauley, Philadelphia, 1881. See 
p. 104; also, for St. Clement's quotations, p. 90. 



214 BEAS0X3 FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



an appointed place; and the records of the Apostles, or 
the writings of the Prophets are read, according as time 
will permit. When the reader has ended, then the Bishop 
[or president] admonishes and exhorts us in a discourse 
that we should imitate such good examples. After that we 
all stand up and pray, and as we said before, when that 
prayer is ended, bread is offered and wine and water. 
Then the Bishop, also, according to the authority given 
him, sends up prayers and thanksgivings ; and the people 
end the prayer with him, saying, Amen. After which dis- 
tribution is made of the consecrated Elements, which are 
also sent by the hands of the deacons to those who are ab- 
sent. 1 ' 15 He also speaks of the Christians offering up " sol- 
emn rites and hymns." 16 

The prayer of consecration or " Canon of the Mass," is 
of course the vital and essential part of the Liturgy. It 
is impossible here to reproduce any ancient Liturgy in full; 
but while referring the reader to Neale's translations, to 
Hammond's great work, and the little book of Hunter 
mentioned above, I will give a brief description of the so- 
called Clementine Liturgy which agrees with that of St. 
James, being probably that form of it which was used in 
Antioch. 17 It is undoubtedly the earliest complete Liturgy 
which has come down to us, for it is contained in the 
eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, which though 
probably not compiled until the third or fourth century, 
is made up of material of much earlier date. The four 
great Liturgies maybe traced back in substantial integrity 



15. For the whole passage see Justin's Apol. I., Ch. 65-0-7. 

16. Apol. I., 13. 

17. See Probst, p. 231, quoted by Hunter. 



AUTHORITY. 



215 



to the fifth century, St. James' Liturgy to the fourth, and 
this form which I am about to quote, certainly to the 
third or earlier. 18 They can also be traced by fragments 
and actual quotations so far back that there can be no doubt 
that they were used substantially as we have them in the 
age next succeeding that of the Apostles, and were based 
on the oral Liturgy which the blessed Apostles used with 
the memory of the Last Supper fresh in their minds, and 
which Proclus (Patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth 
century) asserts they agreed upon before they parted for 
their several fields of work. 

The first part of the Clementine Liturgy — the part which 
we call the Ante-Communion or Proanaphora — begins with 
readings from Holy Scripture (which at an early date, 
probably by St. Jerome in the fourth century, were ar- 
ranged into the Gospels and Epistles for the day. 19 ) Then 
the Bishop says the lesser Benediction (which St. Paul 
quotes in II. Cor., xiii., 14), " The grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Love of God the Father, and the fellowship of 
the Holy Ghost be with you all." 

[And let all answer] "And with thy Spirit." 

Then follows the sermon ; and after that a deacon dis- 
misses the catechumens, and utters a bidding prayer, 
which bears a most striking resemblance to the corres- 
ponding part of the Jewish Paschal Office immediately 

18. Hunter says of it: "We have here sacred words used by apostles and 
martyrs day after day and week after week, older, possibly, than the Gospel of St. 
Maithew; older, probably, than the Epistles of St. Paul; older, most of them, 
certainly than the loveliest and dearest of all writings, the Gospel of St. John." 
P. 26. 

19. The altar readings both of the ancient and modern Anglo-Catholic 
Ohurch often differ from the modern Eoman arrangement, in which case we 
generally follow the old order of St. Jerome, from which Rome has often departed. 
JSee Blunt, Annot, P. B., p. TO. 



216 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



after the discourse, bidding the people pray for the Church 
and the world, for bishops, priests, deacons, etc., for "the 
babes of the Church " (an incidental proof, by the way, 
of infant baptism). The bishop, 20 who is here called the 
High Priest, says the prayer corresponding to our prayer 
for the Church Militant. Then comes the Offertory, when 
" the deacons bring the gifts to the bishop at the altar," 
and the wine is poured out. Just here occurs an im- 
portant rubric : 

" When the High Priest has prayed by himself with the 
priests, and has put on his shining garment, 21 standing by 
the altar, and having made with his hand the sign of the 
Cross upon his forehead, let him say: 

" The grace of the Almighty God, etc., be with you all." 

[And let all with one voice say :] "And with thy Spirit." 

[The High Priest.] " Lift up your mind." 

[All.] li We have unto the Lord." 

[The High Priest.] " Let us give thanks unto the Lord." 

[All] " It is meet and right." 

[And let the High Priest say :] 

[The Preface.] " It is verily meet and right, before 
all things, to hymn to Thee, the only true God," etc. 
Here follows a very long ascription of praise (which we 
have cut down to the Short Preface and proper Prefaces 
of our Communion Office) obviously based on the " Hall el " 
of the Passover ritual. It closes, of course, with the 

20. In this copy of Liturgy the Celebrant is supposed to be a Bishop : It is 
directed to be used by a Bishop at his first Eucharist after his Consecration. 

21. The clergy of the early Church, like the Jewish ministry, wore proper 
vestments as soon as it was practicable to do so. 



AUTHORITY. 



217 



Ceraphic Hymn, though in a somewhat fuller form than 
our own, "Therefore with angels and archangels," etc., 
the whole congregation uniting in the " Holy, Holy, Holy, 
Lord God of Hosts," etc. The bishop then says a prayer 
which embodies a pharaphrase of the Creed, and also cor- 
responds slightly to our "Prayer of Humble Access," 
followed by the solemn Canon of the Mass, which I give 
in full that all may see how remarkably our Prayer of 
Consecration agrees with it : 

" Remembering, therefore, what things He endured for 
us, we give Thee thanks, 0, God Almighty, not as we ought, 
but as we are able, and fulfill His command. 

[The Institution.] For in the night in which He was 
betrayed He took bread in His holy and spotless hands, 
and when He had looked up to Thee His God and Father, 
He brake, and gave to His disciples, saying, This is the 
mystery of the New Covenant, take of it, eat. This is My 
body, which is broken for many, for the forgiveness of 
sins. Likewise, when He had mingled the cup with wine 
and water, and hallowed it, He gave it to them, saying : 
Drink ye all of this, for this is My blood, which is shed 
for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remem- 
brance of Me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and 
drink this cup, ye do show forth My death till I come. 

[The Oblation.] Remembering, therefore, His passion 
and death, and resurrection from the dead, and return 
into the heavens, and His future second appearing, in 
which He shall come with glory and power to judge the 
quick and the dead, and to give to each one according to 
his deeds, we offer to Thee, King and God, according to 



218 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



His command, this bread and this cup, giving thanks to 
Thee through Him, in that Thou hast thought us fit to 
stand before Thee, and to sacrifice to Thee. 

[The Invocation.] And we beseech Thee that Thou 
wilt favorably look upon these gifts which now lie before 
Thee, Thou God, who needest naught, and be well 
pleased with them in honor of Thy Christ, and send down 
upon this Sacrifice Thy Holy Ghost, the Witness of the 
sufferings of the Lord Jesus, that He may make this 
bread the Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the Blood of 
Thy Christ, that they who partake thereof rn&y be 
strengthened in piety, may obtain remission of sins, may 
he delivered from the devil and his deceit, may be filled 
with the Holy Ghost, may be made worthy of Thy Christ, 
may obtain eternal life, since Thou art reconciled to them, 
O Lord Almighty." 

I give here the corresponding prayer in our Prayer 
Book to show how primitive our Liturgy is : 

The Institution. "All glory be to Thee, Almighty 
•God, our Heavenly Father, for that Thou, of Thy tender 
mercy, didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer 
death upon the cross for our redemption ; Who made 
there (by His one oblation of Himself once offered) a full, 
perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction 
for the sins of the whole world ; and did institute, and in 
His holy Gospel command us to continue a perpetual 
memory of that His precious death and sacrifice, until 
His coming again : For in the night in which He was 
betrayed, He took bread ; and when He had given thanks, 
He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, saying : Take, 



AUTHORITY. 



219 



«at, this is My Body, which is given for you ; do this in 
remembrance of Me. Likewise, after supper, He took the 
oup ; and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, 
saying, Drink ye all of this ; for this is My Blood of the 
New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for 
the remission of sins ; do this, as oft as ye shall drink it 
in remembrance of Me. 

The Oblation. Wherefore, Lord and heavenly 
Father, according to the institution of Thy dearly be- 
loved Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, we, Thy humble ser- 
vants, do celebrate and make here before Thy divine 
Majesty, with these Thy holy gifts, which we now offer 
unto Thee, the Memorial Thy Son hath commanded us to 
make; having in remembrance His blessed passion and 
precious death, His mighty resurrection and glorious as- 
cension; rendering unto Thee most hearty thanks for the 
innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same. 

The Invocation. And we most humbly beseech Thee, 
O most merciful Father, to hear us; and, of Thy Almighty 
goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with Thy Word 
and Holy Spirit these Thy gifts and creatures of bread and 
wine ; that we, receiving them according to Thy Son our 
Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance 
of his death and passion, may be partakers of His most 
blessed Body and Blood. " * * * 

After the prayer of consecration follow some special in- 
tercessions for the living and for the faithful departed, 
which we have in the concluding part of the Canon and 
also in the prayer for the Church Militant. Next comes 
the Gloria in Excelsis, though in a shorter and more ancient 



220 REASONS FOR BEING" A CHURCHMAN. 



form than that of other Liturgies, including our own. The 
Communion follows, the bishop, priests and deacons first 
receiving, and then the people in order, " with reverence 
and godly fear." 

u [And let the bishop give the offering, saying :] The Body of 
Christ. [And let him that receiveth, say ;] Amen. 

[And let the deacon take the cup y and giving i£, say /] The 
Blood of Christ, the Cup of Life. [And let him that drink- 
eth, say :] Amen. 

The 34th Psalm follows, corresponding to our Commun- 
ion Hymn. And the concluding prayers correspond with 
our post-Communion prayer. 

This is a fair specimen of the early Liturgy, tne chief 
and central service of the primitive Catholic Church. 
And as we compare our own with it, we may well thank 
God that our Church has " continued steadfastly in the 
prayers." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND "THE PRAYERS." 

44 In beauty built and might 
For Apostolic service 
And high liturgic rite. 1 ' 

—Bishop Coxe, Christian Ballads. 

"Here rises with the rising morn 

Their incense unto Thee, 
Their bold confession Catholic 

And high Doxology. 
Soul-melting Litany is here, 

And here, each holy feast, 
Up to the Altar duly spread 

Ascends the stoled Priest." 

— Same. 

THE striking resemblances which we have noted be- 
tween the Liturgy of our Prayer Book and the Litur- 
gies used in the Early Church are not the result of chance 
nor of imitation, but of hereditary possession and un- 
broken usage. Our Church inherited Catholic worship 
just as she inherited Catholic Faith, Order and Sacra- 
ments. 

The " Liturgy of St. John," 1 used in Ephesus, until the 
fourth century, was very early carried to Gaul, Spain and 
Britain, receiving, of course, certain modifications as the 

1. The Liturgy of Ephesus, though commonly called the 41 Liturgy of St. 
John," is thought by many to be more properly the Liturgy of St. Paul, as it was 
really he who organized the Church in Ephesus, and ordained Timothy as the 
first bishop of that city. 



222 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



needs of the Church required. It was used in Gaul until 
the time of Charlemagne, who introduced the Roman Use r 
about a. d. 800 ; and in Spain until the eleventh century, 
when there also it was superseded by the Roman — 
although since the sixteenth century it has been, and is 
still, used in Toledo, in a college and chapel endowed for 
that purpose by Cardinal Ximenes. 

The British Church was no more indebted to Rome for 
her Liturgy than for her other marks of Catholicity. She 
used a form of the Liturgy of St. John, substantially iden- 
tical with that used in Gaul. When Augustine found that 
the British Christians used a somewhat different form of 
worship from that to which he had been accustomed in 
Rome, he was very much perplexed, and wrote to Greg- 
ory, the Roman bishop, to know what to do. Gregory's 
answer was most wise and charitable ; and to it we are 
indebted for the preservation of our own beautiful and 
independent Liturgy, which, based on that of St. John, is 
still our glory and the precious vehicle of our devotions. 
Instead of forcing the Roman form on the Anglo-British 
Church, Gregory wrote to Augustine : 

" You, my brother, are acquainted with the customs of 
the Roman Church in which you have been brought up. 
But, it is my pleasure, that, if you have found anything 
either in the Roman or the Gallican or any other Church, 
which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, you care- 
fully make choice of the same ; and sedulously teach the 
Church of the English, which is at present new in the 
Faith, whatsoever you can gather from the several 
Churches. * * * Select, therefore, from each Church 
those things which are pious, religious and correct ; and 



AUTHORITY. 



223 



when you have made these up into one body, instil this 
into the minds of the English for their use." 2 

Augustine, of course, made not a few modifications in 
the direction of the Roman Use, which was, perhaps, at 
that time the more elaborate and complete service. But as 
a great majority of the Saxons were converted by the mis- 
sions of the old Celtic Church, the English race clung 
tenaciously to its independent ritual. As a matter of fact 
the Roman Missal and Breviary were never used in Eng- 
land's Church, except in some of the monasteries. At- 
tempts to enforce the Roman Use (as at Cloveshoo, a. d. 
747), encountered a stern resistance, a resistance in some 
respects more successful than certain other Italian en- 
croachments met with. In 1085, St. Osmund, Bishop of 
Salisbury, revised the offices of the Church, and his re- 
vision (known as the Sarum Use) became quite general 
throughout our Church. Certain dioceses, however (as 
York, Bangor, Hereford, and London till 1414), retained to 
some extent local Uses, all of which, however, were clearly 
independent of the Roman Use. 

Very extensively during the Saxon period, and almost 
wholly after the Norman Conquest, the offices of our 
Church were said in Latin for obvious reasons. 3 Moreover, 
many corrupt additions had crept into our formularies of 
worship, such as prayers, hymns and litanies which paid 

2. Greg, opera, II., 1151, Ben. Ed. and Bede's Eccl. Hist., I., 2. 7. 

3. Latin was a sort of universal language in the West, for devotional pur- 
poses far superior to the vernacular which was undergoing constant change, es- 
pecially after the Conquest. Our Church has no objection to the use of Latin 
where it is understood by the congregation ; accordingly an authorized Latin ver- 
sion of the P. B. was put forth for use in the universities and classical schools 
in England, and the opening service and sermon at convocation and at some of 
the diocesan synods in England, are still in Latin. Even in the parish churches,, 



224 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



to saints and angels and especially to the Mother of our 
Blessed Lord, an almost idolatrous veneration, clearly for- 
bidden in Holy Scripture and unheard of in the primitive 
Church. Then, too, the calender was so cumbered up with 
superfluous Saint's Days, and the services were so com- 
plicated, and the daily offices in the monasteries left so 
little time or inclination for daily prayers in the parish 
churches that a reform in our devotional system was as 
clearly called for as the other reforms, in the sixteenth 
century, of which we have already treated. And in the 
Providence of God this, like the others, was effected grad- 
ually and without any break of continuity. 

The invention of printing now enabled the Church to 
put Prayer Books as well as Bibles in the hands of the 
people, and became a powerful instrument for reform. 
Something in the way of devotional reform was accom- 
plished in 1516, probably through the influence of Cardi- 
nal Wolsey, and more in 1531. The " Prymers " and " The 
Mirroure of our Ladye " followed, giving in English, the 
Epistles, Gospels, Litany, and other parts of the services, 
with explanations. In 1541 the Lessons were ordered to 
be read in English. Three years later the Litany was ad- 
mirably revised and authorized to be sung in English. In 
1547 Convocation adopted an " Order of the Communion n 
in English to be appended to the usual Latin Liturgy, and 
providing for the restoration of the chalice to the laity. 

where the English clergy are obliged to say Matins and Evensong every day, if 
no congregation be present, the service may be said in Latin. Had the govern- 
ment allowed the Irish Church to retain Latin after the Reformation, instead of 
forcing English upon it, the probability is that a large majority of the native 
Irish would have remained in the Old Church, instead of being driven into the 
Roman schism. The Irish were used to Latin, but hated English. 



AUTHORITY. 



225 



And finally on Whitsun Day, 1549, the whole service of 
the Church— viz. : " Matins " and " Evensong," " The Holy 
Communion commonly called the Mass," and many special 
offices — was universally adopted in superb idiomatic Eng- 
lish, by authority of Convocation and Parliament. This 
great work, commonly called the " First Prayer Book of 
Edward VI.," is, in the judgment of competent liturgiolo- 
gists, the most perfect form of Catholic worship ever used 
in the Church of God. 4 

Although this Prayer Book was in some respects new — 
the old services being purified and simplified as well as 
translated, and the " Seven Hours " being condensed into 
the two offices of Matins and Evensong — yet it was essen- 
tially identical with the old, and Archbishop Cranmer 
-offered to prove that " the order of the Church of England, 
set out by authority of Edward VI., was the same that had 
been used in the Church for fifteen hundred years." 5 

There have been several subsequent revisions of the 
Prayer Book, but the English, Scottish, Irish, and Ameri- 
can Books, to-day, differ but little from the Prayer Book 
of 1549, the Scottish being the most perfect of the four, 
and the American next. Still the differences are so slight 
that the different members of the Anglo-Catholic family 
are hardly aware of any diversity in their grand, pure, an- 
cestral system of divine worship — which, as a service of 
Common Prayer is far superior to the Roman system in 
which participation in the worship is almost exclusively 
limited to the clergy and the choir, besides being far less 

4. A capital reprint of this book, with a preface by Dr. Dix, may be had of 
the "Ch. Kalender Press," New York. 

5. Bp. Jeremy Taylor's Works, vii., 292. 



226 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



primitive and pure, and "in a tongue not understanded of 
the people." As to all kinds of non-liturgical worship, no 
comparison is possible ; they are not to be mentioned in 
the same breath. 

As one looks at the whole question of public worsnip r 
and remembers how precious the Prayer Book is to many 
a Christian heart outside the Anglican Church, 6 it be- 
comes a matter of wonderment that any body of English 
speaking Christians, even after they had cast off their 
allegiance to the Historic Church, should ever have given 
up the liturgical worship of the sanctuary. Luther and 
Calvin, and Knox and Wesley, 7 and almost every leader 
of secessions from the Church believed in the liturgical 
system, and put forth elaborate forms of public prayer,, 
which are still largely retained by continental Protestants. 
But for more than two centuries almost all English and 
American Dissenters have had the strange notion (not 
taught by their founders nor dreamed of before in all 
Jewry and Christendom) that liturgical worship was un- 
scriptural, insincere, unedifying ! — a sentiment character- 
istically expressed by " Sam Lawson," when he said : 
u Now readin' prayers out of a book, that ere' don* strike 
me as just the right kind o' thing. For my part I like 

6. Dr. Adam Clarke, a distinguished Methodist, said: "The liturgy is 
almost universally esteemed by the devout and pious of every denomination, 
and, next to the translation of the Scriptures into the English language, is the 
greatest effort of the Reformation. As a form of devotion it has no equal in any 
part of the Universal Church of God. Next to the Bible, it is the Book of my 
understanding and my heart. 1 ' Similar testimony, especially in this country 
during the last twenty years, might be multiplied to any extent. 

7. In classing Wesley among the leaders of secession, it must be remem- 
bered that he was such only indirectly and unintentionally. He lived and died a 
loyal Catholic priest, and his dying injunctions to his followers were never to 
leave the Church of England. 



AUTHORITY. 



227 



prayers that come right out of the heart." 8 As though, 
forsooth, a prayer born in the intellectual throes of extem- 
poraneous utterance on the part of the leader, and followed 
by the audience on the qui vive of uncertain expectancy 
and mental adoption, could somehow be more devotional, 
more directly from the heart, than the chaste, hallowed, fa- 
miliar devotions of the Prayer Book, when, the mental effort 
of recollection and invention — the cerebral struggle with 
syntax and vocabulary — being in abeyance, the whole en- 
ergy of the soul is centered in the heart, and the heart itself 
lifted to God in the ecstacy of pure and ennobling worship. 

This truth, with others, is strongly, but with no real 
lack of charity, expressed by a leading Presbyterian min- 
ister on the eve of his return to the Historic Church : 

" To be losing my time and patience, and to be injuring 
my devotional taste and temper with the 1 gifts ' of the 
brethren in a stupid prayer-meeting, when I might be wafted 
toward heaven in the sublime strains of a holy liturgy ; 
to be frequenting a more public service, where prayer was 
curtailed, and Holy Scripture almost excluded, and a few 
short verses of rhyme sung only as an interlude or rest, 
and all this, done systematically, to make room for a 
labored sermon," etc., etc., " when by a single step I might 
enter the larger liberty of a Church which breathes, and 
believes, and prays, and praises as she did when Irenseus, 
Ignatius and Polycarp beheld her glory, and the noble 
army of martyrs died for her as the pure spouse of Christ 
— all this had now become a burden too great for me to 
bear." 9 



8. Mrs. H. B, Stowe's " Oldtown Folks," p. 326. 

9. Mines' Pres. Clerg., p. 140. 



228 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



How did such a system of public service ever arise and 
gain adherents, not to say devotees, among Christian men ? 
It will be a surprise to many to be told that it was largely 
the work of Jesuits in England, 10 who, in the disguise of 
zealous Protestants, made some weaker members of the 
Church and the larger portion of Nonconformists ill 
affected toward the Church's worship, in order to create 
divisions, anarchy, and confusion, that on the ruins of 
England's Faith, they might erect, as on heathen soil, a 
foreign and corrupt Church. They were successful in 
ruining the public worship of Dissent, but the Church of 
England, "the Bulwark of the Reformation," kept the 
Catholic worship, which, in turn, has kept her from man- 
Void ill. And we may now thank God that English- 
speaking Christians of every name are more and more 
coming back to the principles of Prayer Book Worship. 
The remarkable Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer, 
compiled by the devout and scholarly Dr. Shields, of 
Princeton, the earnest efforts of Drs. Hopkins and Hitch- 
cock, also among the Presbyterians, and of other like- 
minded men in different denominations, and the superb 
liturgy compiled by the little sect of Irvingites, are a few 
among many indications that the prejudice against litur- 
gical worship is being done away. There has been, too, a 
sudden waking up to the fact that hymns, which are for 

10. "They (i. e., extemporaneous services) were contrived by popish emis- 
saries disguised in the garb of Protestantism, and pretending the utmost abhor- 
rence of what they stigmatized as the corruptions of popery still existing in the 
English Church. The object was to produce division and dissension, as the 
surest mode of bringing the reformed religion into disrepute, and regaining the 
ascendency once enjoyed by the Roman pontiff. For this purpose, among other 
things, they were loud in their invectives against the liturgy," etc.— Sermons on 
the Church, by the Rev. G. T. Chapman, D. D., p. 188. 



AUTHORITY. 



229 



the most part nothing but rhythmical prayers, are as dis- 
tinctly liturgical as the Litany or the Psalter ; and if it is 
right to sing liturgical prayers in verse, it can hardly be 
wrong to say or to sing them in prose. 

It cannot be claimed that our Prayer Book is absolutely 
perfect, but it is at least marvelously good. 11 Cast in the 
words of Holy Scripture (for more than nine-tenths of it 
is taken directly from the Bible), framed on the general 
plan of primitive Apostolic worship, of which it is the 
lineal descendant, cleansed from all mediaeval corruptions, 
expressed in the purest style of the best of modern lan- 
guages, consecrated by the devout use of generations of 
saints who now rest in Paradise, and withal adapted to the 
devotional needs of the rich and of the poor, of the high 
and of the lowly, in this and every age, we may well thank 
God for the Book of Common Prayer, rejoicing that our 
beloved Church has " continued steadfastly in the Pray- 
ers." 



11. See a notable article by Dr. Shields in the Century (Nov., 1885). Speak- 
ing of the liturgical movements among the sects, the learned Presbyterian 
declares: " It must have its logical conclusion in the English Prayer Book as 
the only Christian Liturgy worthy the name. * * * The English Liturgy, 
next to the English Bible, is the most wonderful product of the Reformation.'" 
He adds, that if the reunion of American Christianity ever comes, "it must 
come through the spirit of Protestant Catholicism, of which the English Liturgy, 
properly amended and enriched, would be the best conceivable embodiment." 
—p. 84. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



THE CLOSE OF THE ARGUMENT FOE THE CHURCH ? S AUTHOR- 
ITY BASED OX HISTORIC CONTINUITY. 

"One only Way to Life; 
One Faith, delivered once for all; 
One holy Band, endowed with Heaven's high call; 

One earnest, endless strife; — 
This is the Church the Eternal framed of old. 

"Smooth, open ways, good store; 
A Creed for every clime and age, 
By Mammon's touch new moulded o'er and o'er; 

No cross, no war to wage; — 
This is the Church our earth-dimmed eyes behold. 

"But ways must have an end, 
Creeds undergo the trial flame, 
Nor with the impure the Saints forever blend, 

Heaven's glory with our shame: 
Think on that hour, and choose 'twixt soft and bold." 

—Keble on Dissent. 

IN connection with the prayers in which our Church has 
continued steadfastly, it is worthy of note that even in 
the manner and the accessories of public worship, our 
Church has followed the general course marked out by the 
primitive Church. 

Dissenters usually sit down to pray and often to sing 
praises, and almost all of them, at their Communion ser- 
vices, receive the elements in the same undevotional pos- 
ture. It is the custom of Churchmen, enforced by rubic 



AUTHORITY. 



231 



and canon law, to make bodily reverence an accompani- 
ment, or rather a part, of divine worship, the general prin- 
ciple being for the congregation to kneel in prayer, to stand 
in praise, and to remain seated during other parts of the ser- 
vice, such as the lessons and the sermon. That this change 
of position is a rest in itself, and relieves the monotony 
of a long service is a practical argument in its favor ; but 
the real ground of it is the authority of primitive example 
and unbroken Church usage, which is after all the natural 
expression of the devotional instinct. 

Perhaps some one will say : What has the position of 
the muscles and bones of my body to do with the prayers 
of my soul? What difference does it make whether the 
angle of articulation between the femur and the tibia be an 
angle of 90 or of 180 degrees? — that is to say, whether 
the knee be bent or no. Well, as a matter of physical 
anatomy it makes no difference ; as an act of bodily exer- 
cise it profiteth little. But as a matter of religious ser- 
vice, of sincere devotion, it marks the difference between 
the reverent worshipper and the irreverent. What differ- 
ence does it make whether a man enter a drawing-room 
with proper decorum, or with hat on and hands in pockets ? 
Why, just the difference between a gentleman and a clown. 
We strive to be polite, urbane, considerate of others ; and 
well we may. Domestic decorum, social civility, and grace 
of manner, born of the instinctive courtesy which renders 
honor to whom honor is due, not only prove the kindly 
heart within, but by a well known law of reciprocal action, 
minister to and increase the same. He who would be cour- 
teous must act courteously ; and he who would be reverent 
in heart must be reverent in his outward demeanor. There 



232 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



is then such a thing as divine courtesy, the humble, rever- 
ent, etiquette of God's House, the grand and worshipful 
decorum of the palace and court of the Great King. 
What ! shall we be polite to our fellow-men, and rude to 
our Heavenly Father? Shall we regard even the artificial 
conventionalisms of society, and forget the ritual of God'& 
Church ? Shall we observe the proprieties of the parlor, 
and not respect the sanctities of Jehovah's temple? Shall 
we present a petition to an earthly prince, on bended knee, 
and (like English courtiers) bow even before the empty 
throne of majesty; and yet, when we offer our prayers to 
the King of Kings, shall we sit bolt upright, or stand with- 
out so much as a feeling of awe before God's Altar Throne ? 
Surely to ask such questions is to answer them, 

And as to Scriptural warrant and primitive example, 
what a cloud of witnesses surrounds us ! See Abraham 
" bowed toward the ground " in the plains of Mamre, 1 and 
his servant Eliezer, when by the well of the city of Nahor, 
"he bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord."' 2 
Witness Moses and Aaron on their faces before the Ark of 
God, 3 and David throughout his life of prayer. Witness 
Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, " before the 
altar of the Lord, kneeling on his knees, with his hands 
spread up to heaven." 4 Call to mind that memorable occa- 
sion when "Jehosaphat bowed his head with his face to 
the ground, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before 
the Lord, worshipping the Lord." 5 Witness Daniel when, 
with his windows open toward Jerusalem, "he kneeled 
upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave 



1. Gen., xviii., 2. 2. Gen., xxiv., 4S. 3. Num., xx., 6; xvi., 22, etc. 4. I. 
Kings, viii., 54. 5. II. Chron., xx., 18. 



AUTHORITY. 



233 



thanks before his God." 6 Behold our Divine Master — in 
His agony in the garden He " fell on his face and prayed." 7 
See the Martyr Stephen, 8 and St. Peter, 9 and St. Paul, 10 on 
their knees in prayer. St. John also gives us a glimpse 
of angelic ritual in heaven. He looks, and lo ! " the four 
and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the 
throne, and worship Him that liveth forever and ever, and 
cast their crowns before the throne. * * * And all the 
angels fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped 
God." 11 The same principle of reverence was carried into 
the early Church. St. Paul says : " I bow my knees unto 
the Father," la and "at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow," 13 while St. James, the first Bishop of Jeru- 
salem, used to spend so much of his time in the true atti- 
tude of devotion, that his knees became like the knees of 
camels. 

There are, of course, among the different races of men, 
certain differences in the manner of expressing reverence. 
Western races uncover the head as an act of reverence ; 
Orientals remove the shoes, which is as natural to them as 
lifting the hat is to us. Races differ also as to their posture 
in prayer. Some stand, some kneel, some prostrate them- 
selves. Customs, even among the same people, may differ 
from age to age. The ritual of the early Church required 
the congregations to kneel at public prayer on week days, 
fast days, and even on all Sundays in Lent and Advent ; 
but on other Sundays, and on all high festivals, the peo- 
ple stood in prayer, in order to show that the Lord's Day 

6. Dan., vi., 10. 7. St. Matt, xxvi., 39. 8. Acts, vii., 60. 9. Acts, ix., 40. 
10. Acts, xx., 36, and xxi., 5. 11. Rev., iv., 10, and vii., 11. 12. Eph., iii., 14~ 
13. Phil., ii., 10. 



234 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



was not a penitential day, not the " Sabbath " (as modern 
Dissenters call it), but a holy and joyous festival. The 
distinction, however, did not long remain in the West. 
The general sense of Christians seemed to be that kneel- 
ing is the proper attitude for prayer — the chief exception 
being that the minister, when he performs what our Prayer 
Book calls a distinctively " sacerdotal function," should 
stand. The distinction, however, while it lasted, was only 
between kneeling and standing in prayer. Such a thing 
n$ the modern, lazy, don't-care kind of ritualism which 
sits clown to worship, was never dreamed of in the Church, 
save as being allowable for cripples, invalids, and those 
who through some unusual illness or fatigue are unable to 
kneel. There is, moreover, a devout custom which has 
been universal in the Church for some sixteen centuries, 
and probably quite general from the beginning, viz., bow- 
ing at the mention of the sacred name of Jesus, wherever 
it occurs, but especially in the Creed and Gloria in Excelsis. 
When American patriots at a political meeting hear the 
name of Washington, they applaud ; when the followers 
of Incarnate God, assembled for worship, hear that Holy 
Name in which He wrought out their redemption, they 
bow, in grateful, loving, reverent adoration. Angels wor- 
ship Jesus Christ. The Father Himself has commanded 
it, for we read : " When He bringeth in the First-begotten 
into the world, He saith, ' and let all the angels of God 
worship Him.' " 14 And if angels adore Him, shall not we 
who are redeemed by Him? As soon, therefore, as " here- 
sies of perdition " led men to " deny the Lord who bought 
them," and to refuse to worship Christ, the very sound of 



14. Heb., i., 6. See also Rev., v., 6-14. 



AUTHORITY. 



235 



Jesus' Name became to orthodox Christians an invitation, 
nay a challenge, to adore Him, to proclaim " Worthy is 
the Lamb that was slain," to feel like Thomas when he 
<3ried : " My Lord and My God ! " 15 It is true that most 
of us bow only in the Creed and the Gloria in Excelsis, but in 
theory our Church keeps up the old custom, for she bids 
her children adore whenever, in Divine service the name 
of Jesus is heard. See the fifty-second of Queen Eliza- 
beth's injunctions (a. d. 1559) and the eighteenth canon 
of the English Church (passed in 1603, and still in force), 
which says : 

"And likewise, when, in time of divine service, the Lord 
Jesus shall be mentioned, due and lowly reverence shall 
be done by all persons present, as it hath been accus- 
tomed." 16 

It is then a part of our continuity in Scriptural and 
Apostolic worship to ask our clergy and people to be rev- 
erent in their demeanor, to " glorify God with their bodies 
and their spirits which are His." Many of our dissenting 
brethren see the propriety of this ; and in times of special 
religious fervor Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and still 
more frequently Methodists, kneel in public prayer ; while 
in private prayer, or about the " family altar " — freed 
from the unnatural restraints of the " meeting-house " and 
the pitiable self-consciousness which is born of uncatholic 
individualism, these same people are always wont to kneel 

15. St. John, xx., 28. 

16. See a learned layman's treatment of this subject, 44 By What Laws the 
Am. Ch. is Governed," by S. Corning Judd, Am. Ch. Rev., Jan., 1882, pp. 214-216. 
Also speech of Sir Edw. Dering, in House of Commons, quoted in Mine's Presb. 
€lerg., pp. 236-237. 



236 BEASONS FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



in reverent and devout worship, in which I have rejoiced 
and do rejoice to unite with them. 

The same principle of Anglo-Catholic continuity applies 
to the Church Year. The Bible and all Jewish History 
set before us the idea of sacred seasons, the round of festi- 
val and fast. The early Christians largely observed the 
Mosaic year. St. Paul u hasted to be at Jerusalem the- 
Day of Pentecost." 17 

Soon three great Christian Festivals, Christmas, Easter, 
and Whitsun Day, took the place of the three great Jewish 
Feasts, while Good Friday succeeded to the solemn Day 
of Atonement, the ante-type to its type. Indeed, from the 
very day of the Lord's Resurrection, a weekly Easter, the 
Lord's Day, took the place of the Sabbath. 

If Americans who lightly esteem the Church's Year — 
but go wild over -the " May Anniversaries " of tract, socie- 
ties, boards of commissioners, and the like, who enter with 
zeal into Luther and Wiclif celebrations, and keep politi- 
cal, biographical, scientific, literary and domestic anni- 
versaries and centennials — would reverently place them- 
selves back in Apostolic times, they would see that the 
rise of the Christian Year was authoritative and inevitable. 
For example, it is inconceivable that the blessed Apostles 
could ever have found themselves in the Paschal Season 
without recalling the events of Holy Week. Suppose it is 
a. d. 53. The Jews are occupied with the Passover. 
What memories, what memories must crowd upon an 
Apostle's mind ! Twenty years ago to-day they nailed 
Him to the Cross for our sins. Let ils fast and pray. Or: 
— This is the anniversary of that glorious morn when our 



17. Acts. xx.. 16. 



AUTHORITY. 



237 



Master rose from the dead. Therefore, let us keep the Feast 
And so the Christian year began. Taking Easter as a 
specimen, I quote the words of Dr. Blunt : 18 

" They who went about 6 preaching Jesus and the Resur- 
rection, 5 and who observed the first day of the week as a 
€ontinual memorial of that Resurrection, must have re- 
membered with vivid and joyous devotion the anniversary 
of their. Lord's restoration to them. It was kept as the 
principal festival of the year, therefore, in the very first 
age of the Church, and Easter had become long familiar 
to all parts of the Christian world so early as the days of 
Polycarp and Anicetus, who had a consultation at Rome 
in a. d. 158, as to whether it should be observed according 
to the reckoning of the Jewish or Gentile Christians. 
.[Irenseus in Euseb. v., 24.] Eusebius also records the fact 
that Melitus, Bishop of Sardis, about the same time, wrote 
two books on the Paschal Festival [Euseb. iv., 26], and 
Tertullian speaks of it as annually celebrated, and the 
most solemn day for Baptism. [De Jejun. 14, De Bapt., 
19.] Cyprian, in one of his epistles, mentions the cele- 
bration of Easter solemnities [lvii.]; and in writers of later 
date the festival is constantly referred to as the 'most 
lioly Feast,' 4 the great Day ' [Cone, Ancyra, vi.], 1 the 
Feast of Feasts/ 4 the Great Lord's Day,' and 'the 
Queen of Festivals. [Greg., Naz., Orat., in Pasch.]" 

Our own Church, through all its deformations and 
reformations, has always had the same Christian Year. No 
break was made in the sixteenth century, no change save 
to weed the Calender of some superfluous days of recent 
origin and questionable propriety. As one has said: 



18. Annot. P. B., pp. 103 and 104. 



238 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



" The Christian Year is a lively and systematic exposition 
of the Christian Creed." 

So it is with other points, such as the respective func- 
tions of bishops, priests and deacons, the form and man- 
ner of ordaining, the power and use of Absolution, the 
architecture and arrangement of churches, the vestments 
of the clergy, etc. 

A single word as to the last. The Jewish ministry was 
ceremonially vested by divine command. It is not likely 
that the Christian ministry would forego a custom so- 
natural, reverent and appropriate. As soon, therefore, as 
the Church was able to have regular and well-ordered ser- 
vices, the clergy appear to have worn a distinctive dress 
in their public ministrations. Many think that the 
" cloak" which St. Paul "left at Troas," was an Episco- 
pal vestment. St. James in Jerusalem and St. John in 
Ephesus used to wear the mitre of the High Priest. 19 

During the ages of persecution, when the Church wor- 
shipped "in dens and caves of the earth," there is no clear 
evidence that the clergy in general wore vestments, but as 
soon as it was safe and practicable the custom became 
universal; 20 and has, of course, been perpetuated in the 
Anglican Church. 

For all the distinctive features of our Church we have 
primitive precedent and historic usage almost absolutely 
uninterrupted from the beginning ; and for most of them 
we have Catholic, Apostolic, Scriptural, Divine authority r 
while none of them are contrary to the Word of God. 

19. See Polycrates, ap. Euseb., iii., 31, for St. John. Epiphanius asserts the 
same, and appeals to St. Clement as authority for the statement, Hoer, xxix., 4. 
Hegesippus affirms it of St. James, ap. Euseb., ii., 23. 

20. See Van Antwerp's Ch. Hist., vol. 1, p. 64. 



AUTHORITY. 



239 



There are a few matters of ceremonial and a few methods 
of work, certainly harmless and probably useful, for which 
ancient and quite general authority can be alleged, but 
which have fallen into disuse among us. Our Church has 
never condemned them, they can be fully restored at any 
time, and are decidedly non-essential, anyway. If there 
be one sign above another of our Church's justification, 
one key-note of the Anglo-Catholic position, it is the word 
Continuity, — continuity in all the essentials of the Catho- 
lic religion of the kingdom of God. 

It has now been shown that Christ founded an enduring 
Universal Church, with a perpetual ministry. The marks of 
that Church are apparent in Holy Scripture and in ancient 
history. Of the three great divisions of English-speaking 
Christians to-day, Anglo-Catholics, Roman Catholics, and 
Protestant Dissenters, to which ought we to belong ? 

The Dissenters have no historic continuity with the 
Early Church, and for the most part do not pretend to 
have ; have lost the Church's ministry, the Christian Year, 
Common Prayer, and, to an appalling degree, the Faith, 
the Sacraments, the services, and the usages of Catholic 
antiquity ; and have wholly lost the idea of authority and 
of unity in the kingdom of God. 

The Roman Church has added to the Faith a few 
untrue, and many unnecessary dogmas ; has over-ridden 
the Bible and the General Councils ; has added creature 
worship to "The Prayers has mutilated the Chief Sac- 
rament ; has committed schism in four out of the five 
Patriarchates 21 and in the autocephalous Churches; has 

21. It is the charge made by the whole Eastern Church that the Pope of 
Rome, as but one of five Patriarchs, has schismatically broken away from the 
other four. 



240 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



thrust a fallible man into the throne of God on earth 
and has presumed to elevate a woman (albeit the holiest 
of the daughters of Eve) to the throne of the Adorable 
Trinity in Heaven. And whatever may be said for the 
authority of the Roman Church in Italy, as the national 
Church thereof, certainly within Anglo-Saxon Christen- 
dom it is nothing but a foreign, intruding, schismatic 
Church, having no mission and jurisdiction, and no his- 
toric continuity, no organic connection with the old 
Church of England. 

The Anglo-Cathoiic Church, on the other hand, has re- 
tained, in unbroken continuity, all the essential elements 
of true Catholicity, while free from corrupt and unneces- 
sary additions. She is Catholic ; she is reformed ; she is 
Scriptural ; she is authoritative ; she is that part of the 
kingdom of God which has jurisdiction over the Anglo- 
American race ; she has continued steadfastly in the 
Faith, the ministry, the Sacraments, and the worship of 
the Apostolic Church. In a word, we may say to her : 

"Antiquom obtines," 22 

" How well in thee appears, 
The constant custom of the antique world. 1 ' 23 

And as to those who have "gone out from us," but who 
love the Lord Jesus Christ, they are still our brothers, and 
the Merciful Father is the Judge of all, and will do right. 
Be ours the prayer of Hezekiah : u The good Lord pardon 
everyone that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord 
God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to 
the purification of the sanctuary." 24 



22. Ter. Andria, Act IV., Sc. iv., 817. 23. "As You Like It," II., 3, 56. 24. II. 
Chron., xxx., 18-19. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPEDIENCY. 

14 Rise, Sion, rise, and looking forth, 
Behold thy children round thee ! 
From East and West, and South and North 

Thy scattered sons have found thee ! 
And in thy bosom, Christ adore 
For ever and for evermore." 



—From the Haute de Klete of St. John Damascene (Neale's 44 Hymns of the 
Eastern Church"). 



HE fact that Christ founded an authoritative kingdom 



1 on the earth, of which the Anglican Church is a pure 
and complete branch, ought to make a Churchman of 
every English-speaking Christian, irrespective of tastes, 
personal preferences, and considerations of temporary ex- 
pediency. 

The question is not : Which of the three systems (the 
Anglo-Catholic, the Papal, or the Protestant) do I like 
best ? but which is right, authoritative, divine ? We have 
found the Anglican so to be. Any other system, therefore, 
so far as English-speaking Christians are concerned, may 
logically be met with Tertullian's praescriptio in limine (like 
a case in court which is "quashed " or dismissed without 
a trial), for " what is new is none." 

Nevertheless there are some people who care nothing for 




242 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



authority, but consult only their own preferences. To such 
while freely admitting the good there is in all systems of 
Christianity, even the most defective, we need not fear to 
hold up the superior advantages of the Church in its or- 
ganization and in its practical methods of worship, teach- 
ing and work. 

Of the three systems of Christianity among us, the 
Anglican is the only one which both holds to the past 
and adapts itself to the present. The Roman, despite its 
many innovations, does hold to the past, but it is as far as 
possible from adapting itself to the present, being totally 
at variance with the genius — even the better genius — of 
modern times: 1 while as for Dissent, it breaks wholly 
with the past and in adapting itself to the present, too 
often sacrifices essentials of Christian doctrine and devo- 
tion to the itching ears and the restless, creedless spirit of 
modern society. 2 But the Church is at once stable and 
elastic, conservative and progressive. 

All the elements of Catholicity are not only of divine au- 
thority (as we have seen), but are, in the long run, so practi- 
cally beneficial that they may well challenge the admiration 
of the mere utilitarian. Indeed the bare imitation of some 
of them — e. g., the Methodist imitation of the Episcopate, 
and occasional imitations of Catholic worship and Sacra- 
ments in various denominations — have been found so ad- 
vantageous that there is a strong tendency on the part of 
many practical and farsighted Dissenters to adopt, as a 
matter of expediency in order to keep their children from 
flocking to the Church, many customs of the Church 



1. See the Syllabus of Pius IX. 2. See II. Tim., b\, 3. 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 



243 



which they once condemned. The reading of the Bible 
in public worship, religious services at weddings and 
funerals, 3 the use of instrumental music, the singing of 
hymns and even chants and anthems, a lessening of the 
grim requirements for "joining the church," a milder and 
more Churchly treatment of Christ's little ones, a partial 
escape from the pestilent superstition touching the neces- 
sity of " instantaneous conversion," — a cruel bug-bear 
which has frightened many a pure, gentle, sensitive soul 
away from all religion — the use of the Holy Cross — which 
used, with shocking profanity, to be called the "mark of the 
beast," a growing belief in Paradise or the immediate state, 
the imitation of Church architecture, a partial adoption of 
the Church's year, of the Church's nomenclature, of the 
Church's idea of worship (as distinguished from mere 
preaching and exhortation), 4 and even of liturgies, minis- 
terial vestments, banners, processions, lights, ecclesiastical 
colors, and ritual in general, albeit sometimes strangely 
symbolic; more frequent Celebrations, and notably less 

3. See "Puritanism; or a Churchman's Defence against its Aspersions,' 1 
by the late Dr. Thomas W. Coit, D.D., of Berkeley. 

4. " Of course it would be idle to expect those outside the pale to appreciate 
our system, because if they did they would be outside no longer. Nevertheless, 
there are from time to time remarkable and most touching indications of an 
instinctive yearning after Catholic faith and practice amongst those who as yet 
know them not. Here is an example : The congregation of Govan, a suburb of 
Glasgow, recently presented a testimonial to their minister, Dr. John Macleod, 
who in returning thanks referred to that happy time 4 when the Church, i. e., the 
Presbyterian bodies, would repent of the blunder she had so long committed in 
substituting the purely human invention of perpetual preaching and hearing of 
sermons, for that which undoubtedly was the distinctive ordinance of the weekly 
worship, the perpetual pleading by the holy priesthood of the power of the sac- 
rifice for all men before the Throne of the Eternal, and the feeding upon the 
Heavenly food of the Body and Blood of our Lord.' We can only pray that this 
good man may soon discover where he may at once obtain what he wants." — 
Church Times. 



24-4 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



disagreeable mannerisms, 5 unreasonable asceticism, and 
pseudo- Judaic Sabbatarianism; and, above all, more sweet- 
ness and beauty, and joy in the Christian life, with more 
charity for the Church, — all these things show a tendency, 
on the part of those whose ancestors left the Church, to 
return to the Church's bosom. They are a vindication of 
the Church's system, showing that its general features are 
not only harmless, but desirable and good. As Dr. Hop- 
kins, the Presbyterian champion of liturgical worship, 
says "the tracks are all one way" The tendency of de- 
vout and thoughtful Dissenters is unquestionably toward 
the Church. They wonder now at the fierce passions and 
petty whims which led their ancestors to break with the 
Historic Church. It is said that descendants of Luther 
are to be found in the Roman priesthood, and descendants 
of Cromwell in the priesthood of the English Church; 
while descendants of Cotton Mather, and indeed of almost 
every Puritan prominent in the early history of New Eng- 
land, are to be found among the clergy or the laity of the 
American Church. 

The practical advantages of the Episcopal form of gov- 
ernment are as obvious as the fact of its Apostolic authority 
is incontrovertible. But perhaps the argument which 
weighs most with outsiders who have not heard, or do not 

5. In the reasonable, cultivated, urbane, and to all outward appearances 
Churchly Congregationalist one meets in Boston society to-day, it is hard to rec- 
ognize a descendant of the so-called 11 Pilgrim Fathers," or the English Puritans 
of the seventeenth century, whose idiosyncrasies were a part of their religion. 
The reader will recall Macau^y' s vivid description of them : • The ostentatious 
simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, 
their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they intro- 
duced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of 
polite amusements, etc." Essay on Milton. 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 



245 



grasp, the argument from authority, lies in the usefulness 
and beauty of our dear old Book of Common Prayer. 
Said a Congregat'ionalist minister who, like many of his 
brethren, is an appreciative observer of the Church : 

" The proper name, because truly descriptive, for this 
Church, would be Church of the Prayer Book. As is the 
way with all other churches, so here the Church champions 
and leaders have many wise things to say about the Church 
and her perogative. But the pious multitude that frequent 
her courts, are drawn thither mostly by love of the prayers 
and praises, the litanies and lessons of the Prayer Book. 

"And, brethren of every name, I certify you that you 
rarely hear in any church a prayer spoken in English, that 
is not indebted to the Prayer Book for some of its choicest 
periods. 

u And further, I doubt whether life has in store for any 
of you an uplift so high, or downfall so deep, but that you 
can find company for your soul, and fitting words for your 
lips among the treasures of this Book of Common Prayer. 

"In all time of our tribulation ; in all time of our prosperity ; 
in the hour of death and in the day of Judgment ; Good Lord 
deliver us. 

"As a consequence of the Prayer Book and its use, I 
note : 

" The Episcopal Church preserves a very high grade of 
dignity, decency, propriety and permanence in all her 
public offices. 

" In nearly every newspaper you may read some funny 
story based upon the ignorance or eccentricity or blasphe- 
mous familiarity of some extemporizing prayer maker. 
All of you here present have been at some time shocked 



246 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



or bored, by public devotional performances. Nothing of 
this sort ever occurs in the Episcopal Church. All things 
are done and spoken decently and in order. 

"And so, too, of permanence and its accumulating worth 
of holy association, no transient observer can adequately 
value this treasure of a birthright Churchman. 

"To be using to-day the self-same words that have 
through the centuries declared the faith or made known 
the prayer of that mighty multitude who, being now de- 
livered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and 
felicity. 

tc To be baptized in early infancy, and never to know a 
time when we were not recognized and welcomed among 
the millions who have entered by the same door. 

" To be confirmed, in due time, in a faith that has sus- 
tained a noble army of confessors, approving its worth 
through persecutions and prosperities, a strength to the 
tried and a chastening to the worldly-minded. 

"To be married by an authority before which kings and 
peasants bow alike, asking benediction upon the covenant 
that, without respect of persons, binds by the same words 
of duty, the highest and the lowest. 

" To bring our new-born children, as we were brought, 
to begin where we began, and to grow up to fill our 
places. 

" To die in the faith, and almost hear the gospel words 
soon to be spoken over one's own grave as over the thou- 
sand times ten thousand of them who have slept in Jesus. 

" In short, to be a devout and consistent Churchman, 
brings a man through aisles fragrant with holy associa- 
tion, and companied by a long procession of the good, 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 



247 



chanting as they march a unison of piety and hope, until 
they come to the holy place where shining saints sing the 
new song of the redeemed ; and they sing with them." 6 

In the same strain, Dr. Phelps, of Andover, writes in a 
memorable epistle : 

"A friendly study of the Episcopal Church discloses 
certain dominant ideas, which we who cherish Puritan 
traditions may with profit add to our stock of wisdom. 
One of these ideas is that of the dignity of worship. Of 
Christian worship no other branch of the Church universal 
has so lofty an idea as the Church of England and its off- 
shoot in this country. In all the liturgic literature of 
our language, nothing equals the Anglican Liturgy. Its 
variety of thought, its spiritual pathos, its choice selection 
of the most vital themes of public prayer, its reverent 
importunity, its theological orthodoxy, and its exquisite 
propriety of style, will commend it to the hearts of devout 
worshippers of many generations to come, as they have 
done to generations past. For an equipoise of balanced 
virtues it is unrivaled. 

" The liturgic forms of other denominations would be 
saved from some excrescenses and inanities if the vener- 
able Book of Common Prayer were more generally revered 
as a model. * * * 

" The spirit of worship is deepened by the use of liturgic 
forms, in which holy men and women of other generations 
have expressed their faith. The Lord's prayer has been 
the most potent educator of childhood and youth that the 
world has ever known." 



6. Lecture on the Episcopal Church, by the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher. 



248 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN, 



He also observes : 

"Another of the ideas dominant in the Church of Eng- 
land, which we do well to accept in such degree as our 
puritanic faith will admit, is that of the unity and moral 
authority of the Church. We have drifted to a perilous 
extreme in our advocacy of the principles of individuality 
in religious life. It often degenerates into individualism. 

"The Church of England does good service for us all in 
conserving this Churchly idea without crowding it to the 
tyranny of the Romish hierarchy. Divine life is concen- 
trated in one true and living Church. That article of the 
Apostles' Creed, 1 1 believe in the Holy Catholic Church/ 
has more than Apostolic authority. It is the Word of 
God. It represents the power which is to convert this 
world to Christ, 

" When this idea of Churchly authority is presented in 
its biblical simplicity, the common sense of men approves 
it. Under right conditions the world reveres it." 

He proceeds : 

"The Church of England, furthermore, does good ser- 
vice in the conservation of the idea of the historic continuity 
of the Church. * * * 

"This reverence for historic continuity as a factor in 
religious culture is found developed in no other Protes- 
tant sect so profoundly as in the Church of England. By 
her fidelity to it she does good service to the Church of 
the future." 

Or in the words of the lecturer above quoted : 

" The Episcopal Church furnishes (to all who need such 
comfort) the assurance of an organic and unbroken unity 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 249 



and succession, from Jesus Christ through the Apostles,. 

by a line of authentic bishops, down to Bishop of 

this diocese. * * * 

" Citizens and Christians, all ! — Because this Episcopal 
Church is a reformed Church and not revolutionary ; be- 
cause her book of prayer is rich and venerable above all 
in the English tongue ; because her ritual promotes 
decency, dignity, prosperity and permanence ; because 
her historic union through the Apostles with Christ com- 
forts and satisfies so many souls ; because she adopts her 
infant children and provides for them education and drill; 
therefore, from her own psalter let us take the words 
wherewith to bless her : 4 They shall prosper that love 
thee. Peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness with- 
in thy palaces. For thy brethren and companions' sakes 
I will wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the house of 
the Lord our God I will seek to do thee good.' " 

Similar sentiments are often advanced by devout, un- 
prejudiced Protestants, who see the beauty of the Church, 
and love her ; but, having never grasped the Sacramental 
system, and the idea of the Church's unity and divine 
authority, are content to admire her from without. To 
such and to all our non-conforming brethren who study 
the Church at all, I beg to say a single word : 

Love the Church for Christ's sake. And if we Church- 
men, who at best are but unworthy sons of our Holy Mother, 
sometimes appear to be bigoted or uncharitable when we 
defend our Mother's honor, remember we do not feel so,, 
and it is not for ourselves that we contend, but for her. A 
true Churchman's love for the Church is an enthusiasm, a 



250 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



celestial passion, such as no one has ever felt or can feel 
for a human organization. 

"I love the Church, the Holy Church, 

The Saviour's spotless Bride; 
And Oh, I love her palaces, 

Through all the land so wide; 
The cross-topped spire amid the trees, 

The holy bell of prayer, 
The music of our Mother's voice, 

Our Mother's home is here.'' 7 

Protestants often feel the spell which sometimes takes 
devout, impressionable, sentimental natures to the Church 
of Rome, where they become devotees. And it is a glory 
and a great advantage to any Church to be able to inspire 
an ardent and enthusiastic love in this cold age. But I 
affirm there is no charm on the cheek of her that sitteth 
upon the Seven Hills, which can for one moment hold com- 
parison with the holy beauty of the Saviour's Bride, when 
she " looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as 
the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." 8 Roman 
Catholics belong to the Church, and love the Church, and 
the Roman Church is, of course, apart of Christ's Catholic 
Church ; but the Papacy itself is no part of the Church, but 
a blot upon it. The Papacy is indeed " terrible as an army 
with banners; " but it is the non~papalized, the Catholic Church 
alone, that is " beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem." 9 

But on the fair and heavenly graces of our Mother, who 
of us is worthy to speak? As Macauley says of Athenian 
literature, " It is a subject on which I love to forget the 
accuracy of a judge, in the veneration of a worshipper, 
and the gratitude of a child." 10 



7. Bishop Coxe, Christian Ballads. 8. Solomon's Song, vi., 10. 9. id., vi., 4. 
10. Conclusion of Essay on Milford's History of Greece. 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 



251 



When one has grasped the Catholic idea, when one re 
frizes fcr the first time that he is in that same old Church 
which God loved and purchased with His own Blood, the 
€hv.rch in which the blessed Apostles lived and died and 
.are living still, the Church of the Fathers, the Saints 3 the 
Martyrs of yore, the Church clad in the white robes of 
early tribulation, and crowned with the garlands of Nicsea 
and Constantinople, the Church that lifted Britain from 
barbarism and made the Anglo-Saxon race " a chosen peo- 
ple, 5 ' y ^he leaders of the world — when, I say, the truth 
dawns upon one that he is in the Church of the Living 
God, and in :,hat part of it which has continued most 
rsteadfas ly in the Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship, Sac- 
raments and Prayors, there is given him an uplift of soul, 
n divine enthusiasm undreamed of before and not elsewhere 
to be obtained; d, vbt seems impossible, righteousness 
grows easier, love becomes immortal, and salvation is 
made as sure as the possibilities of human nature allow. 
The Catholic Churchman, and the Catholic Churchman 
alone, understands this: 

" Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the City of 
the Living God, the Her venly Jerusalem, and to an innum- 
erable Company of Angels, to the General Assembly and 
Church of the first born, which are written in Heaven, and 
i>o God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 
made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Cove- 
nant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better 
things than that of Abel." And after such a description 
of the Church as that, well does the Apostle conclude: 
*'See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." 6 



6. Heb. xii., 22, 23, 24. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM FUTURITY. 

M Wanderers ! come home ! When erring most 
Christ's Chnrch aye kept the Faith, nor lost 

One grain of Holy Trnth: 
She ne'er has erred as those ye trnst, 
And now shall lift her from the dust, 
And reign as in her youth ! " 

—Lyra Apostolica, p. 137. 



complete the reasons for being a Churchman accord* 



1 ing to the plan proposed, it remains to consider 
briefly the argument from futurity : Which of the three 
systems of Christianity in vogue amongst us has the 
brightest outlook ? is surest to keep the Faith ? offers the 
best basis for the reunion of Christendom? 

I. A century ago the prospects of Anglo-Catholicism 
were far from encouraging. The Church was bound hand 
and foot by an Erastian government. Faith and piety ^ 
the Church idea and missionary activity were at a low 
ebb. But things have changed. The revival of Church 
life — begun in part by the Wesleys, and by the so-called 
Evangelical movement early this century, and carried out 
on Catholic lines by the Oxford movement since 1833 — is- 
one of the grandest revivals in the religious history of the^ 
world. 

Since then the growth of the English Church at home 




FUTURE PROSPECTS, 



253 



— where it still holds three-fourths of the population — 
among the colonies, and in heathen lands, is, for present 
character and promise of permanency, such as no other 
religious body can show. 

The Church in the United States was almost annihilated 
by the Revolution ; it took fifty years for it to recover 
even a foothold in this land. Since then its progress has 
been very satisfactory, and, on the whole, rather more 
rapid and substantial than that of any of the denomina- 
tions. Its position is honorable and unique in the relig- 
ious life of the Western world. It is looked up to and 
respected by all classes. Its future is bright, and growing 
brighter all the while. 

The Anglo-Saxon race is now the dominant race of man- 
kind. The English language, the most universal, as it is 
the most perfect of modern tongues, is now spoken by at 
least a hundred million people. At the present rate of 
increase it will not be long before there will be five hun- 
dred million men speaking the English language and 
moulded by Anglo-Saxon influences — among which influ- 
ences the oldest, most characteristic, most permanent, and 
most potent for good, is the Historic Church, everywhere 
identified with the English-speaking race. In hundreds 
of European cities, and in the military and commercial cen- 
ters of Asia, Africa, South America, and the islands of the 
sea, wherever a community of Englishmen is to be found, 
there is almost sure to be an Anglican chapel in the midst 
of them. Besides which the Book of Common Prayer has 
been translated into nearly a hundred different languages. 

Heretofore when comparisons have been made between 
the English Church and the Roman, there has always been 



254 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



an element of numerical unfairness, the English Church 
being but one national Catholic Church, and the Roman- 
Church being a vast conglomeration of a number of na- 
tional Catholic Churches, which had lost their ancient 
independence. The only fair comparison would havebeen 
as between the Church of England and some one national 
Church of about the same size, say the Church of France, 
or the Church of Spain, or the Church of Italy. But the 
time is coming when the national Catholic Churches of 
England, Scotland, Ireland, the United States, Canada,. 
Australia, India, South Africa, and other colonies — to say 
nothing of the " Old Catholics," or reformed part of the his- 
toric Church in Europe, now in full communion with the 
Anglo- Catholic, and not to mention the " Orthodox Catho- 
lic Eastern Church" with its eighty-five million members 
— will surpass the Tridentine Consolidation in numbers, 
as they do already in social, intellectual, moral, and spirit- 
ual influence, and that, too, without any tyrannous and 
un-Catholic centralization. Indeed, so far as the ethnic, 
political, commercial, linguistic, and ethical prospects of 
the Anglo-Saxon race are an indication, the outlook of the 
Anglo-Catholic communion is brighter by far than the out- 
look of the Roman, whose constituency is almost whohV 
confined to the less moral, less intelligent, less dominant, 
less progressive, less rapidly increasing, less promising 
races of Southern Europe and South America, among 
whom infidelity (especially in France and Italy), is sap- 
ping the very life of religion, of society, and of the state, ' 
Romanism is at its best where it has intruded into the 
jurisdiction of the Anglo-Catholic Church. It is, if I may 
so say, forced to be on its good behavior. But aside from its 



FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



255 



being here an unjustifiable schism, 1 which has, in the long 
run, no right to expect the blessing of God, the outlook of 
the schism amongst us is not good. Despite most strenu- 
ous efforts put forth in England, and in spite of a large 
Hibernian immigration, the Anglo-Roman schism has been 
relatively losing ground, having now barely three and a 
half per cent, of the population where a few decades ago it 
had from four to five per cent And of that small percent- 
age not one-sixth are English. As Mr. Gladstone computed 
in 1878, " probably not less than five-sixths are of Irish 
birth," and the remaining sixth contains many aliens 
from the continent. The idea that an Italian schism will 
ever dominate the English race, while the Catholic Church 
of England stands, is simply frenzy. 

In America the growth of the Italian mission has been 
rapid and substantial, not, however, from its inherent fer- 
tility nor from its earnest and faithful proselytism, but as 
the result of a most enormous and unprecedented influx of 
foreign co-religionists from Ireland, Germany, and else- 
where. The Romano- American papers often proclaim a 
net increase, say of 100,000 souls, during a given year. 
It sounds well. But during the same year, more than 100,- 
000 Romanists have been added by immigration without 
which the " net increase " would have been a minus quantity. 
A candid Roman Catholic prelate recently remarked that if 
his Church had kept all Roman Catholic immigrants and 
their children, it would have some 20,000,000 adherents in 
this country, instead of which it has but little over 6,000,- 



1. "The guilt of schism rests on the Church of Rome, and the Roman Church 
Bince a. d., 1570, has occupied in England the position of a permanently echis- 
matical body."— The Rev. Wm. A. Rich. 



256 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN 



000. It is, moreover, out of harmony with the spirit and 
genius of American institutions and popular liberty; and 
can only bring itself into harmony therewith by an act of 
felo de se, the Syllabus of the late " Infallible " Pio Nono, 
being witness. 

The United States is the Paradise of Protestantism. 
Owing to the character of the early settlers, and the almost 
total destruction of the English Church during the Revolu- 
tion, sectarianism here far outnumbers both the Church and 
the Roman schism. Its prospects are brighter here than 
anywhere else. Nevertheless, in the judgment of thoughtful 
men, both within and without the Church, its total lack of 
authority, its uncertainty in matters of faith, its conflict- 
ing, multitudinous divisions and sub-divisions, its tend- 
ency to further disintegration, and its dependence on " spas- 
modic religion," are against its permanency and ultimate 
success as the religion of the English-speaking race. 

Protestantism is, moreover, about to pass through a 
fearful ordeal. It has always blindly proclaimed itself 
The Religion of the Bible: — " The Bible and the Bible only 
the religion of Protestants." But Protestantism is now 
beginning to be uncertain whether the Bible is inspired ; 
what constitutes the Bible ; whether there is any Bible at 
all. Protestantism rejected the Church, and put in its 
place that Book which is a child of the Church. The 
New Testament was written by Churchmen, and was not 
completed till the Church was more than sixty years old. 
The canon of Scripture rests on the authority of the 
Church, which is "The Witness and Keeper of Holy 
Writ." Destroy the Church, and you have logically lost 
the Bible. Logic is inexorable, and will at last make 



FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



25? 



itself felt. Protestantism is going to wake up to this fact. 
Then those who want the Bible will come back to the 
Church, while those who refuse to conform will be left 
Scriptureless as well as Churchless. 

There is such a thing as whole communities laboring 
for generations under a logical delusion (as St. Paul says, 
" Blindness in part is happened to Israel "). 2 The delu- 
sion of Dissent — which I venture to call Protestant paralo- 
gism — is that the testimony of early Fathers and councils 
must be accepted on the subject of the canon of Holy 
Scripture, but not on the subject of the Church — its Creed 
its threefold ministry, its Sacraments, etc. The Presbyte- 
rian, Doctor Miller, who could appeal to St. Ignatius as 
authority against Unitarianism, but in the next breath 
reject him in toto because of his testimony in favor of 
Episcopacy, is a fair specimen of the demoralized reason- 
ing faculty of Dissent. There is, forsooth, an Ecclesia 
Docens, conciliar authority, patristic testimony, and Cath- 
olic tradition, when private judgment wants such things ; 
there is no Ecclesia Docens, no conciliar authority, no pat- 
ristic testimony, no Catholic tradition, when private j udg- 
ment wants none. Alpha est and alpha non est have been 
sleeping together in the brain of Protestantism. By and 
by the landlord will find that he really cannot accommo- 
date them both ; that he cannot consistently hold that 
there is a Church, and that there is no Church. If he 
decide that there is a Church, then he must conform to it ; 
if he decide that there is no Church, then he must give up 
his Bible, for without the Church he cannot know what 



2. Rom., xi., 25. 



258 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



the Bible is, and the same authorities which tell him of 
the Bible, tell him also of the Church. What will be left 
of Protestant Dissent when it gets through this ordeal, 
God only knows. From such an ordeal, however, the 
Churchman has nothing to fear. Take away his Bible if 
you can ; he still has the Gospel chrystallized in the Creed 
and the Liturgy, in the Sacraments and in Catholic tradi- 
tion. In a word, he has the Church of the Living God, 
the Pillar and Ground of the Truth ; and having 
the Church, he has all, and can get back his precious 
Bible, for the Church tells him what it is. 

II. The Anglican Church offers the strongest guaran- 
tee for the keeping of the Faith — u When the Son of Man 
cometh, shall He find the Faith on the earth? " 3 Were it 
not for the Anglican and Greek Churches, the answer 
would be doubtful indeed. 

In the various Churches which are conglomerated into 
the " Holy Roman Church," the Catholic Faith is overlaid 
(not to say smothered) with the creed of Pius IV., a part of 
which is uncatholic and false, and with the false dogmas 
of the Immaculate Conception and the infallibility of the 
Bishop of Rome. The old Faith in which the saints and 
martyrs were saved is not enough now. A man must 
also believe unsupported assertions, historical contradic- 
tions, at least one blasphemous conceit, and a host of 
adiaphora, or be damned. And one of the saddest specta- 
cles the sun sees, is the apostacy from all faith which 
Rome is causing among her children to-day by enforcing 
falsehoods. Rome, as a Church,, still holds the whole Cath- 



3. St. Luke, xviii., 8. 



FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



259 



olic Faith, but multitudes prefer to risk damnation by 
believing nothing, rather than to lower themselves to the 
level of superstition, credulity, and "gullibility" neces- 
sary to make one believe what nature and common sense, 
history and the Bible, the undivided Church and God 
Himself proclaim to be foolish and untrue. I refer, of 
course, to the impious nonsense of " papal infallibility" 
and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the 
Blessed Virgin — which latter, by the way, is a fine illus- 
tration of the truth (!) of the former, as fourteen "infalli- 
ble " pontiffs declared it a heresy, and one " infallible " 
pontiff (Pius IX., in 1854) declared it a dogma of the 
Faith and necessary to salvation ! ! (See Littledale's 
" Plain Reasons," p. 167.) It is said that a little girl in a 
Roman Catholic convent school naively defined faith as, 
u The gift of God, whereby we believe what we know to be 
false." It is a kind of faith needed in Rome to-day. 

And granted a man knows the Roman faith to-day, 
what will it be to-morrow ? Is infallibility the last arti- 
cle of the Creed ? " Infallibility " may promulgate a new 
creed to-morrow, in which vagaries as false and absurd as 
itself may be declared defide and necessary to salvation, e. 
g., the ubiquity of St. Joseph, the apotheosis of St. Mary, the 
real presence of the lac Virginalis in the Eucharist (for Roman 
theologians already teach that St. Mary is present in the 
Eucharist, and especially that the lac Virginalis is received 
along with the Sacrament of the Blood of Christ, (see 
Pusey's Irenicon, p. 160, Et Seq.), or the sanctity and sal- 
vation of " Pope Alexander VI." Rome is uncertain in 
matters of faith. 

Protestant Dissent comprises so many different faiths 



260 



REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



and even different religions, that it is hard, in this connec- 
tion to speak of it as a whole. But even of the very es- 
sence of the Faith, the Incarnation of the Eternal Consub- 
stantial of Son of God, Sectarianism has been and is 
making shipwreck. Almost everyone of the Presbyterian 
congregations existing in England in the seventeenth cen- 
tury has long since become Unitarian. The apostacies 
from Christianity to Socinianism, of the French, Dutch, 
Swiss, and German Protestants, are simply appalling. In 
the early part of this century a large proportion of the 
Trinitarian Congregationalists of Xew England denied the 
Lord that bought them. But in Connecticut where the 
Church was strong, Unitarianism never gained a foot- 
hold. Xo parish of the Anglican Church ever went over 
to Unitarianism. 4 The conservative spirit of Anglicanism, 
fortified by the Creeds, the liturgy, and the Church Year, 5 
makes it less likely that the Anglican Church will either 
add to or detract from the Faith than that either Rome or 
Dissent will do so, or more properly will continue to 
do so. We Anglo-Catholics recognize that "the Faith 
which was once delivered to the saints," is a final reve- 
lation. The Creed is settled. Our aim is to hold it. 
Rome's idea is to develop it; while the Protestant idea 
is for each man to pick out his own creed from the Bible, 
or rather from such parts of it as meet with his approval, 
and from his own inner consciousness. 

Given three such systems of keeping the Faith, it 



4. King's Chapel, Boston, is no exception, for the Church had been seized 
by Congregationalists before the Apostacy occurred. They, and not Churchmen, 

were responsible. 

5. " Our festival year is a bulwark of Orthodoxy as real as our confession of 

faith." — Archer Butler. 



FUTURE PROSPECTS. 261 



stands to reason that the Anglo-Catholic is surest to suc- 
ceed. Nevertheless, we must admit that we hold these 
treasures in earthen vessels; and it behooves us. as the 
Church directs, three times a week to pray: " From false 
doctrine, heresy and schism, good Lord deliver us," and 
from our heart of hearts to offer the petition of Trinity 
Sunday (which used to be said daily in our Mother 
Church) : " We beseech Thee that Thou wouldst keep us 
steadfast in this Faith." 

III. Finally, which system offers the best basis for the 
reunion of Christendom ? 

That the Papal system which in one year, this century, 
lost fully 2,000,000 of subjects (including bishops and 
priests) to the Orthodox Catholic Church of Russia, 6 
which cannot even hold its own in France and Spain and 
Italy, can ever succeed in bringing the Catholic Churches 
of the Orientals and Anglo-Saxons, and the four hundred 
Protestant sects, under the Roman yoke, is manifestly ab- 
surd. Rome makes no concessions. She has burned the 
ships behind her. The dogma of Papal Infallibility must 
be retracted before Catholics or Protestants will be able to 
have communion with the Latin Church. It is a doctrine 
so absurd, so blasphemous, so obviously false, that the 
Papacy itself is cracking under the strain of it. 

If Rome would bring about the reunion of Christen- 
dom, let her take away the Papacy and mitigate the doc- 
trinal and devotional excesses touching the Mother 
of our Lord. There would remain then but little to hinder 
a Godly union and concord between the three great 



6. See Dr. Neale's "The Bible and the Bible only, the Religion of Protest- 
ants," p. 7, and Alloc, of Greg. XVI., Nov. 16, 1839. 



262 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



branches of the one Catholic Church. But this is simply 
to return to the fundamental principles of the Anglo- 
Catholic Church, as the old Catholics on the Continent have 
been doing ever since the Vatican Council. Thoughtful 
Roman Catholics of the Gallican School, have often ac- 
knowledged that, if the union of Christendom ever comes, 
it must be through the medium of the Anglican Church. 7 
No plan for the reunion of Christendom, however, must 
pass over the four hundred Protestant sects, some of which 
lack little of Catholicity save the Apostolic Ministry. 
Between Historic Christendom and Protestant Christen- 
dom there is just one connecting link, and that is the 
Anglican Church. That she is Catholic we have seen. 
That she is thoroughly and scripturally reformed, even 
radical Protestants admit, for they insist on calling her 
u Protestant," and our Church is allowed on all hands to 
be the bulwarkof the Reformation. No reasonable and 
devout Dissenter objects to joining in the worship of the 
Anglican Church, and Anglican religious writings are cur- 
rent among all Protestants. For orthodox Dissenters 
to conform to the old Church is no sacrifice of principle. 
A man, for instance, may not be fully convinced as to Apos- 
tolic Succession, but that need not hinder his coming into 
the Church, which demands of her children only the sim- 

7. See Pusey's Irenicon, p. 197, et passim. Even Ultramontane De Maistre 
could say: "Si jamais les Chretiens se rapprochent, comme tout les y invite, 
1 semble que la motion doit partir de V Ejlise de V Angleterre." (Considerations 
sur la France, c. II., quoted in the Irenicon, p. 246 ) If Christians ever come 
together again, as they all desire, it is evident that the movement must originate 
with the English Church. 

Joseph Le Marche, the celebrated ultramontane, said that the Anglican 
Church, touching, as she did, upon what was great and noble in Protestantism 
and upon the fundamental truths of Catholicism, was the chemical solvent to 
bring about a possible united Christendom. 



FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



263 



pie faith of the Apostles, the Creed. Surely he cannot 
think a clergyman who is episcopally ordained, is any less 
a priest or minister than one congregationally ordained ; 
that is, not ordained at all. 

Nothing in all the world so retards the progress of Chris- 
tianity as the divisions among Christians. In seeking 
re-union, therefore, we ought all of us to be willing to give 
up non-essential innovations and to restore vital or desir- 
able things which have been dropped. If Rome would 
leave off insisting on such innovations as the infallibility 
and supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and the other 
leading novelties which in the nature of things cannot be 
essential, the result would be a return to unadulterated 
Catholicism, to the principles which underlay the ancient 
Church, and which are to-day the basis of the Holy East- 
ern, the Anglican, and the Old Catholic Churches. 

On the other hand, let Protestants simply restore what 
they have cast off, at least the Apostolic ministry which 
Christ ordained, the primitive universal Creed and Sacra- 
ments, accepting enough of the Divine Liturgy to insure 
the regular administration of the latter, and Protestants 
would find themselves Catholics of the Anglican, Oriental, 
primitive type. 

All Protestants combined cannot reasonably expect 
Catholic Christendom (viz. : The Anglican, the Greek, and 
the Roman Churches, to say nothing of the old Catholics, 
Nestorians and Copts) to give up the Nicene Creed and 
the Apostolic Succession. Almost nine-tenths of Chris- 
tians are Episcopalians, believing in the Episcopal form of 
Church order, and in the necessity of Episcopal ordina- 
tion ; and they have always believed so from the begin- 



264 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



ning. They believe that to give up their Apostolic Suc- 
cession would be to un-Church themselves forever. But 
no Protestant believes that (from his own standpoint) it 
would unchurch him to have the ministry of his church 
ordained by a bishop instead of a layman. 

In short. Christians have erred in two ways. The Ro- 
manists have added many things. The Protestants have 
cast off many things. Between these two extremes lies 
the only ground of union, and that ground happens, in 
the providence of God, to be occupied by the Anglo-Cath- 
olic Church. She has all the good things which Rome 
has — the Creeds, the Bible, the Ministry, the Sacraments, 
the worship and the traditions of the Catholic Church — 
without the objectionable additions. At the same time 
she certainly has all the good things which Protestants 
have, without their defects. 

In effecting the re-union of the scattered sheep of Christ, 
the Anglican plan would not necessitate the submission 
of all Christians to the English Church, but merely a 
return to Catholic Faith, order, Sacraments and worship 
among us all, so that there might be inter-communion. 
All the Anglo -Catholic Church would ask for herself, is 
that she be recognized as the Catholic Church of so much 
of the world as fairly comes under her jurisdiction, viz.: 
the British Empire and the American Republic. The 
other Churches would only need to return to their ancient 
integrity, and there would at once be full inter-communion. 

I do not say that Christendom will ever be united on 
Anglo-Catholic principles ; but I do affirm that the only 
reunion which can take in both extremes must be on the 
general principles of the reformed Catholic religion, which 



FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



265 



are the peculiar heritage of the English-speaking race. 
" Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye in the ways, and see and 
ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk 
therein." 8 To-day Dissenters are looking more and more 
favorably on the old Mother Church ; and wherever re- 
form is being attempted in the down-trodden national 
Churches of the Roman obedience, it is the Anglican 
Church that is looked to for help and for guidance ; it is 
the Anglo-Catholic Reformation, rather than the revolu- 
tions of Luther and Calvin, that is taken for a pattern. 
Dissenters, Jansenists, old Catholics, Nestorians, Copts, 
look to us for help and inter-communion. We have par- 
tial and growing inter-communion with the Greek Church, 
and have many bonds of sympathy even with our cruel 
sister, the Church of Rome. If any other part of Christen- 
dom can offer a better starting-point for re-union, what 
is it? 

To sum up, then, because on the whole the Anglo-Cath- 
olic Church has the brightest outlook, as the dominant 
religion of the dominant race of men: because it is the 
surest to keep the Faith till the Master comes; and be- 
cause it offers the only possible basis for the re-union 
of Christendom, there is stronger reason, based on the 
argument from futurity, for being a Churchman rather than 
for being a Recusant or a Dissenter. But be the outlook 
what it may; be the present condition of our Church 
as gloomy as when there were but seven thousand wor- 
shippers of God in all Israel, the fact remains that, of 
the three divisions of English-speaking Christians, the 
Anglo-Catholic Church is the one which, in accordance 



8. Jer., vi., 16. 



266 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 



with the Bible and with history, has continued most stead- 
fastly in all the essentials of Apostolic Faith and Fellow- 
ship, Sacraments and Worship, and which alone has Di- 
vine authority and lawful jurisdiction over the children of 
God in the British Empire and the American Republic. 

" Holy Jem, King of the Saints and Prince of the Catholic 
Church, preserve Thy spouse, whom Thou hast purchased with 
Thy right hand, and redeemed and cleansed; the whole Catholic 
Church from one end of the earth to the other; she is founded 
upon a rock, but planted in the sea, preserve her safe from 
schism, heresy, and sacrilege. Unite all her members with the 
bands of faith, hope, and charity, and an external communion, 
when it shall seem good in Thine eyes. Let the daily sacrifice of 
prayer and sacramental thanksgiving never cease, but be forever 
presented to Thee, and foreverr united to the intercession of her 
dearest Lord, and forever prevail for the obtaining for every of 
its members, grace and blessing, pardon and salvation. Amen." 



FINIS. 



r0* 



V 



•V- v. 

.0 o 



* a s o » ft ' , , „ *k ' » 



1 ,_ o> 



v0 ©, 



1 ' % I 




•vO* ~ * o v o J X \V 



» 



cv 




